


One for sorrow

by RainonyourBack



Series: Songs of Paradise [1]
Category: Shaman King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Dreamwalking, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Issues, Multi, Pining Across Realities, Power Imbalance, Slow Burn, Work In Progress, future sight, in all senses of the word
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainonyourBack/pseuds/RainonyourBack
Summary: If you know who Leda, Medusa or Cassandra are, then you know drawing the attention of a god is never a good sign. Well, Tamao is just about to appreciate how dangerous the limelight can be.She has started having odd dreams about a future tournament where people she doesn't know die around her. Only one person survives: a young girl with white hair and red eyes that the Tamao of this future knows. Problem: in her reality, she can't remember who the stranger is, and doesn't know how to find her.





	1. This is the way the world ends

The smell of blood was so strong Tamao felt like throwing up.

She had been thrown out of the vehicle during the accident. Ponchi and Conchi had protected her from the brunt of the damage, just like they had Manta, but she still felt hurt all over, and the slightest movement cost her greatly. She had done her best to protect the other people inside the car, but she wasn’t sure that… No. They had to be okay.

The attack had come right out of the blue. She remembered that much. Someone had shot at them and Marco… She remembered the back of the seat growing redder and redder, soon to be utterly drenched. It had looked like paint…

Her mouth suddenly felt like lead. Reaching for Conchi, she sent him along to go get Anna. She needed to know. Yoh needed to know what had just happen. They had to… she did not know how to finish that thought. Manta helped her up, and together they started to go around the car. She needed to know if everyone was okay…

A pale figure stood near the driver door, and a Tamao let out a relieved sigh. “M-miss Jeanne! Are you okay?”

She stepped up to the Iron Maiden’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder, before drawing it right back. Jeanne’s skin was like ice, and her face seemed frozen into one of terror. “Jeanne…?  
\- I killed everyone. I did it again. I did - I did - I killed everyone. I killed them… I…”

The anxious mumbling that fell from Jeanne’s lips were almost beyond intelligible, and Tamao realized the younger girl was partly speaking in languages she did not understand. Jeanne’s eyes were wide, and she was breathing loudly, like she couldn’t get her oxygen to arrive to her lungs. She did not even seem to see Tamao, even when the Japanese girl came to stand right in front of her. Something like anger came over her - due to the shock from the accident, no doubt - and she shook Jeanne’s shoulders, but in vain: Jeanne saw nothing and did not seem to be looking at anything. All she did was mumble aimlessly.

"Ta… Tamao…"

The young girl turned her eyes away from Jeanne to see what seemed to be terrifying Manta. The boy was not looking at her either; he was pointing to what seemed to be a puddle of blood, a little way away on the road. Something like a whip and yellow scraps of fabric were still visible. “That… that’s the man who…”

Manta did not manage to finish; he had just fainted. Tamao almost followed suit when she realized it could only be their attacker. But if he was dead… as gruesome as that death was… why was Jeanne so frightened? She only had to revive Marco and Lyserg, and...

“Ah, so that’s how that turned out.”

As soon as the words reached her ears, Tamao felt her heart skip a beat. Silently, she turned, and watched Hao approach. Acting on instinct alone, because surely the only other reason would be madness, she stepped in front of Jeanne and raised her medium. Ponchi must have been about as terrified as she was, but he did not protest. They had to… They had to protect Jeanne. As long as she was in that weird mood, she was vulnerable, but soon she would feel better and she could defend herself, and… Tamao realized she didn’t believe what she was thinking.

Hao must have felt it, because he did not look offended by her little show of resistance. Stopping right by the puddle of blood, the Fire Shaman smiled.

Tamao’s mouth felt dry, but she forced it to work. “W… what are you doing here?”

Hao, who seemed to have been considering the blood smeared all over the floor with interest, looked up to her, and she shivered.

“I just came to check on dear Anahol’s handiwork, isn’t that obvious? Oh, and to end the X-Laws for good. I guess Luchist is much too sentimental to carry this out properly. Odd that a weak little nobody could be more efficient than a Shaman as strong as he is, don’t you think?”

Tamao blinked. Of course he was here for Jeanne, it was obvious, why had she even asked? And yet… her determination only strengthened, and she activated her Over-Soul.

Behind her, there was something like a sob. Turning, she discovered that Jeanne had now brought both of her hands up to her head, as if trying to keep it from exploding. She held fistfuls of white hair in what seemed to be a very painful hold, and she spoke faster now, so fast Tamao could not understand her at all anymore.

Hao made a show of sighing loudly, and Tamao turned back to face him. “I-I won’t let you,” she stuttered, fighting as best as she could to silence her fear.

“Oh, that’s very brave of you. Although it seems most of the work has been done already, so I don’t see what you could really do.” He was looking at the dusty corpses, and Tamao felt dread fill up her stomach. Hopefully Anna would get here soon...  
“By the way, are you sure you are protecting the right person? I seem to remember that you were not too pleased with dear Maiden’s first fight in the ring.”

Tamao could not stop herself from frowning. How…? That was not important. He must have looked their way and seen that she was distraught when Lyserg and Jeanne… But now was different. Now the one who had killed somebody was… Anahol, and through him it was really Hao’s fault. Jeanne was still in shock, but she had only been trying to protect them...

“You really think she was defending herself? You know, that’s what she told herself after the Niles, too. That she was only protecting Lyserg against people who had tried to kill him. Did protecting him have to mean killing them, though? I, for one, am not buying it.”

How could he know exactly what she was thinking?

“As for today… are you so sure Anahol is the one who set off the explosion?”

What? Tamao could not help but frown. All that Hao did, however, was smile as he stepped closer.

“Ah, but that’s not important now. Time is running out and talking with you is so engrossing that I would almost forget why I am here. Oh… Those two will not be useful to us anymore,” he purred, his eyes drifting to the two corpses of the X-Laws men. He did not eve have to move: a large tongue of fire engulfed the two men, and they disappeared from view.

“No!”

Tamao tried to run to them, hoping that she might be able to drag the corpses out of the flames. But she was too slow, and soon there was nothing to save. The fumes blinded her and made her cough, forcing her back; the smell of sizzling flesh and burning metal were too much for her, and she threw up in the darkened grass.

She did not know Marco all that well, and he kind of scared her, but she would never have wished for him to disappear that way. And Lyserg… Lyserg, sweet Lyserg who was always smiling and trying to protect everybody, Lyserg who was Yoh’s friend, Lyserg…

Hao seemed to have lost interest and wandered up to Jeanne, the only person still standing apart from him. Jeanne did not seem to see him any more than she had seen Tamao: her eyes were still wide, and she still looked as if trying to keep her body from blowing up. For the first time, Tamao noticed the terrible mass of writhing furyoku around the X-Law. It seemed to go into every direction at once and fell like tidal waves over both Jeanne and Hao. Tamao could not see his face, but she sensed confusedly that letting him do as he wished with Jeanne would be a terrible mistake. She couldn’t even see him! And she didn’t know that Lyserg… That Marco… This was not fair. This was not fair! She had to do something, protect Jeanne, protect…

Hao raised his hand and snapped his fingers. It was like someone had cut the strings that held Jeanne together: her eyes closed, and she fell in a heap against Hao, who gathered her into his arms. Tamao called out her name in vain, and could only watch as Hao turned to face her, still smiling as unnervingly as before.

“She’s coming with me. What you do is up to you.”

Tamao dumbly stared at him. Up to her? Of course it was not up to her. There was Manta, lying on the floor, and… and… Lyserg and Marco’s remains, and someone had to tell Anna and Yoh what had just happened, and...

“By the way, I think you should know: Yoh is almost certainly dead and gone now. Just like The Ren… and also the Gandara princess. I doubt there is anyone who could still do anything to stop me.”

He could not have hurt her more if he had thrown Spirit of Fire at her. Tamao felt like fainting, and she must have nearly done so, because when she was aware again she was on her knees again. Already, she could see Hao turning away. He was starting to leave. Soon, she knew, he would be truly gone, and it would be impossible to follow. He would be gone, and Jeanne would be gone, and the world would be beyond saving.

Thinking was growing harder and harder to do. She wanted to throw up again, and to cry, and also to erase this day from time and space. Not so long ago, Jeanne had been offering to let her try on the dresses, and tying up her rubans in Tamao’s hair. Not so long ago, Lyserg was twisting in his seat to be able to talk and smile with them. Not so long ago, she was waking up Yoh, and Ryu, and all the others for their morning training…

Her heart just felt empty now. On trembling legs, Tamao stood back up.

And slowly started to follow.

* * *

Tamao woke with a start. Her body was slick with cold sweat and she still had trouble breathing, but she could no longer smell blood nor smoke. Her blankets were wrapped around her to the point it hurt, and she had to struggle out of them. With a few kicks, the white comforter was pushed to a safe distance, and she crawled back to the wall. Something was wrong, though she could not tell what, exactly.

It was only then, with her hot back to the cold wall and her eyes growing used to the dark, that she recognized where she was. She had just left her futon, and… and she knew these white walls, that floor. She was in her room – her own bedroom, in the Asakura mansion, obscured by the dark December night. This was less reassuring than it should have been, and a wind of panic hit her in the face. How…? Hao couldn’t have…

Feeling sick, she brought her hands to her face. It was as if it did not belong to her. These cheeks were too soft, too childish; her hands were too smooth, too chubby. Her body seemed to have been sanded down, freed of the scabs and muscles she had developed. Now she was too small, too clumsy to feel recognizable. This body, this place… did not belong to her, not anymore. Her head was still full of the crash, of Hao’s smile, of the terror expressed by… by who?

Who were the people she had seen? Just moments before, she knew she would have been to tell exactly who they were and why everything happened the way it did. Now… she barely remembered their faces. They seemed so important, but… she didn’t remember why. She felt like she had been torn from her own world, her own life, back into the past, into a much too comfortable room and a much too malleable body to fit her. Just when – just when that girl, whoever she was, needed her the most…

Then Tamao noticed she was crying.

And the tears did not stop.


	2. This Be the Verse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamao attempts to explain what she saw to the Asakura family in spite of her anxiety.

The ticking of the clock and the fumes of Kino’s kiseru filled the room.

Tamao kept her eyes to the ground, trying to make herself the perfect picture of obedience. She knew that adding anything else would not help her case. Everything was said now. Whether or not to believe her was up to Kino, and to make the decisions she believed should be made.

The mouth of the old woman made a sound as she put her pipe down. Without looking at her, Tamao knew Kino was off-balance, and not just a little. She was worried, and that was as concerning as it was comforting to the girl in front of her. Kino believed her. Was that good, or bad?

Just as Tamao was about to look up, the phone rang. She started to get up, but Kino raised a hand to stop her.

“That would be Anna,” she said, very calmly. “I need to talk to her. Stay and drink your tea.”

With a surprising ease for her age, the old woman stood up and disappeared into the next room. Tamao considered the slowly cooling cup before her, but did not move. Now that Kino wasn’t with her anymore, she felt a bit more at ease, though not enough to actually drink the tea.

Although Kino had closed the thin door behind her, Tamao could still very clearly hear the old lady settle down beside the phone. In the corner of her eye, she noticed Ponchi float over to the wall, one of his ear distended to the point of it being larger than his entire body. Instantly, panic welled up within her.

“Ponchi,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

Conchi answered instead. “Don’t be such a wimp, Tam! Don’t you want to know what they’re gonna say? Anna never calls during the week! That can’t be a coincidence if she does it right when Kino’s here to see you!”

Tamao bit her lip. It couldn’t be about her dream already, could it? Anna wouldn’t have heard of it yet... Unless she had dreamed as well?

“See? We need to know!”

She had no comebacks.

“Shh, you two, I can’t hear anything!”

“What are they saying?”

There were a few moments of silence as the spirit focused.

“Kino’s talking about it to Anna. She says... She’s not seen anything that would confirm what you’ve seen, nor did Anna... Eh!” The spirit grimaced. “I mean... Nothing. Anna’s just... Just asking if it could just be a dream.”

Tamao paled, though she said nothing. She couldn’t see, or even hear Anna herself, but it was not surprising.

When Mikihisa had introduced her into the Asakura family, she was barely old enough to stand on her own, and he said she would be his son’s fiancée, because she had potential, and she deserved to be raised by great Shamans. But what he was forgetting, what he wanted everyone to forget was that he was not an Asakura, and neither was she. Yohmei was sweet, Kino was not unkind, and the two willingly accepted her help in the house, but the distance between she and them was never bridged. She was Mikihisa's student, Mikihisa's protégée, and the intruder Mikihisa had brought, and she could feel that they did not like it. As far as they were concerned, she was his responsibility, and she was only welcomed in the house because it would be rude to throw her out.

And then, one cold winter evening, Kino had appeared at the door of the Asakura mansion with a small blond girl with empty eyes, and Mikihisa’s big ideas all came crashing down against the matriarch’s authority. Tamao understood that they were grateful for her help, but Yoh had a real fiancée now, and if she could stay it would only be as the help, nothing more. Maybe it would have been easier to bear if she hadn’t thought she would actually be more, first.

Yet at first, she thought time would heal that wound. She would talk to Anna, would become her friend, her sister, to avoid being her rival. That would have to remain another of her sweet dreams: a year after she moved past the threshold of the Asakura mansion, Anna and Tamao couldn’t have talked more than ten times. They did not live in the same place, which didn’t help, but even when they did Kino’s protégée showed no interest in talking with her. Maybe Anna thought she was jealous? That would not be so surprising...

“Kino says that’s not possible,” Ponchi added. “That nobody ever talked to you about Hao, that you should not be able to describe him that well, and...”

Tamao’s heart skipped a beat. Until now, Kino had said nothing about the dream, or really about anything at all. Yet it seemed she believed her. And... And Hao really existed. It was not just an image or a dream. Yoh did have a real double, one the matriarch and Anna seemed to know. That last discovery did not bring any relief to Tamao, though. Instead, she felt a cold hand grip her heart. A boy able to kill with just one look...

“Ah, Anna cut her off. She says that... OK, she did not mean it like that. When she spoke about it being ‘just a dream’, she meant... She didn’t mean that it was just ‘your’ dream, but still something... That’s not real. Like... As if... The world expressed its anxiety at the idea of Hao returning through you?”

Tamao frowned. “Could that... Be the case? But then who would the girl be? Why would the world think about her?”

Conchi shrugged, and his twin grimaced. “All souls are connected, right? She might just be a strong Shaman, given what you’ve seen. Kino’s also asked about the other people in the dream, and... There,here’s what Anna’s saying: ‘Could be people from the tournament, or maybe just ghosts. Or maybe mere concepts that became ‘people’ in your dream. Seeing the future is not an exact science’. Ah... wait.” He focused. “Kino says it doesn’t matter where the dream comes from. That if there’s any possibility it happens, we have to take it into account. And... Eh? I can’t hear anything anymore, it’s like there’s a sound - ow ow ow!” The end of his sentence turned into a sharp whimpering as a hand seemingly appeared from the wall. It belonged to one of the spirits of the house, who left its hiding place just as the matriarch pushed the panel back to come back into the room.

“Thank you, Sui,” Kino said, and the spirit started happily vibrating. Her apparent innocuity was not to be mistaken for harmlessness: Sui was a zaskiki warashi, a spirit who shaped themselves into a young child no older than six. Her flowery kimono and neat hair could have made her Ponchi and Conchi’s punching bag if she had not shown them, very quickly, that she knew their every weakness and would use them if they gave her even a hint of an excuse.

Tamao’s face immediately turned beet red. Words rose to her throat all at once, and she found herself mute, unable to say anything. Kino stared, her face blank. Then she smiled, and she pulled on her pipe.

“We need to talk,” she commented, as she was sitting down. “Did you not drink?”

The young girl stared at her knees again. It was hard - heart-gutting - to have to talk. Her words were getting balled up in her throat, and she could feel her heart behind them, pushing until she couldn’t hear anything but its steady beat. But... She had no other choice. Kino had been clear: she had to use her words.

“I’m not... Very thirsty. Sorry for...”

“Don’t be. It’s completely normal that you would want to understand. Moving forward, though, I would ask you to believe that what I tell you is all you need to know. There are some things that could put you in danger, if you knew them.”

Feeling like she had just received the polite version of smacking someone over the head, Tamao tried to look appropriately scolded.

Kino took a drag from her pipe and sat back down.

“Let’s start from the beginning.”

Tamao nodded once more, fighting the urge to flee back into the pit of her stomach.

“It’s been, ah, a week. I dream... It’s always the same dream. Every night.” Her hands tightened over her notebook. Kino could not read it, but Tamao still wanted to bring it to this meeting. It helped flesh out her memories, bring out the pictures and the words from her mind and her sleep. “At first, I... I thought it was my imagination, but the dream is always the same.”

Kino nodded. “Describe it.”

“I’m in... In a car accident. With a boy I am... Close to, I think. I managed to — I managed to protect the passengers with Conchi and Ponchi, in part at least, and that’s why I... I’m alive and he’s... Alive too. But not everyone is. I... Go around the car, and I can see two corpses. They’re bloodied. That... I... The person I am then knows them. I know their names... I know they scare me. A little. But it’s not because they’re... Mean? But... They’re dead.” She could still smell the blood and the smoke in her throat, and tears were starting to sting, behind her eyes. Kino could not see her, but

Tamao was convinced she could sense her tears, so she fought to calm down.

“I don’t know where Yoh is. I don’t know where we are, I don’t know... When we are, or why I am with these strangers. But I don’t think they’re strangers, when it happens.” She was getting confused. It all seemed so intertwined, and she had already gone over everything. It was not easier the second time around. “There’s...”

“There’s?”

“There’s a girl,” Tamao managed out. “I can’t... I always try to, but I never remember her name. I just know she’s... important.”  
Kino drank her tea. Tamao followed suit. Her tea was cold, but it helped her calm down somewhat. “Not just... N-not just for me. I mean, not at all for me. She’s, uh, important in the fight. Against Hao.”

Kino moved, a light sigh making her shoulders move like a wave. It was barely visible, but Tamao saw it. “Tell me about him.”

“He’s... Not there at first. The girl, she’s - she’s afraid. Terrified. She’s the one who... Who killed the attacker, I don’t know why she’s so afraid. It’s like she can’t hear me when I call her. And that’s when he comes.” She stopped. Her throat felt tight. “He’s not... Very old, he couldn’t be older than... Fifteen? Maybe less. There’s this... Aura, around him, something terrifying and, ah, cold. So cold it burns.”

“And he looks like Yoh.”

Tamao frowned. “I... Didn’t realize that right away. It’s only when I drew him that it... It showed. The shape of his face, his hair, his eyes... His voice, too. But he does not hold himself the same way. His hair is too long, and... I don’t really know how to describe it, but he’s different.”

There was another silence. Kino had forgotten both her pipe and her tea.

“Does he ever give you his name?”

“I... I don’t think so. But I know his name. It’s Hao.” Her voice did not hitch when she said it, and she felt proud, because she felt very small in front of Kino, and she really needed the matriarch to tell her everything. “You too... You know him. Who is he?”  
Kino must have expected the question. She did not show a hint of surprise. “Remember, when I told you to trust me?”

Tamao lowered her eyes. The thing clawing at her heart had seemingly moved to her throat. “I... Of course I trust you, but... But I really think I should know. In my vision...”

“Yes?”

“In my vision...” The words burned as she let them out. “Yoh is dead. He - Hao - He killed him, as well as... Many people that I don’t know. I think they’re... His allies? His friends? Yoh’s. I think. And I... I want... If I can, I want to help. I want to make sure what I saw never happens. Let me help.”

And while she talked, she raised her eyes to face the older woman’s dead stare. Without even looking, she could smell the first signs of spite in the lines of Kino’s face. Oh, she wasn’t doing it on purpose, but it was clear Tamao would not be the person she would entrust her grandson’s life to if he were in danger. And maybe she would be right not to.

“These are family secrets, Tamao,” said the old woman. “But you are right to ask. This is the only way to make sure you don’t misunderstand your dreams. Sui, take Conchi and Ponchi outside.”

The two spirits protested at first, but in vain; Sui effortlessly dragged them over to the window, and then the two women were alone.

Tamao swallowed, then straightened up. She could feel a new surge of courage flush through her veins, fuelled by her dreamed feelings of urgency and powerlessness. “So?”

Kino grimaced. “Hao is the enemy of our family. Worse, he is a foe to all Shamans and all of humanity. He is also the one who birthed the Asakura family. He was executed more than one thousand years ago.”

Tamao blinked. If she expected anything, it wasn’t that... And she was not even sure she had actually understood what Kino meant. “One... Thousand years ago?”

Kino nodded, her face stern. “Hao is... Without equal on the field. He mastered - and still masters - many techniques that were lost to time. The omnyo arts, as well as the ability to resurrect, are especially dangerous. And that is why he remains our enemy, Tamao: he has revived himself to take part in the upcoming Shaman Fight. If he wins... If he wins, he will destroy humanity, as well as all of those who opposed him. That is why Yoh needs a very hard training, as well as the support of our entire family.”

Was that an indirect way of apologizing for bringing Anna into their lives? Tamao decided to not reply. “That’s why he looks like Yoh...”  
After a moment of silence, Kino nodded. “Yes. However, I know nothing about the other people in your vision. I just hope that, with these informations, you will be able to see more. Your newfound power could really change everything.”

Another silence followed. Did she expect Tamao to have another dream right there and then? She had no control over her dreams. It wasn’t like asking questions to the ouija board - and she wouldn’t risk doing that in front of Kino, not when her spirits could on a whim decide to make an embarrassing joke instead of answering properly.

“I will call Mikihisa,” the old woman added. “We will probably have to talk to Yoh, too. Later. We need to rethink our strategy. Use the rest of the day to rest. From tomorrow on, you might not have much time for yourself. And... Come here.”

Taken by surprise, the young girl raised her head. Kino looked at her, eyebrows raised, as if to ask what she was waiting for.

Tamao did not have much of a choice: she rose and stepped closer.

“Your hands,” Kino asked. Her voice betrayed no emotion, no judgment. Yet Tamao felt her entire body stiffen. What did Kino want?

Ignoring her drying mouth, Tamao raised her hands and offered them, palms up, to the blind woman. Without letting go of her pipe, Kino took one in between her withered fingers. She searched with her nails for the lines across Tamao’s palm. In addition to the folds of her skin, she could sense a quantity of thin scars and other scabs from her latest skit with Mikihisa. One of her nails opened a barely-closed wound, and Tamao held back a whine. She did not move, did not try to tug her hand away. Ignoring the blood, Kino continued pressing into Tamao’s hand, almost massaging her fingers and her wrist.

“Your hands shall be your shield, your weapon, your tool. Take care of them, Tamao,” was the old woman’s advice before she retreated, limping. Tamao looked at her hand, as if it was a stranger’s. All of the tension stored within her had seemingly evaporated, and her scratches had stopped bleeding. The wound remained, and the smears of blood remained, covering the majority of her palm.

“So, what are you waiting for? Go wash up and get ready for your training.”

And Tamao was sent away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another exposition chapter, but I think I’ve managed it pretty well. I like what I managed to do with what I had planned, especially since these aren’t characters I’m used to using. So if you see some odd things... Just come at me with all the inaccuracies!
> 
> Also, much thanks to Nualie, who kindly beta’ed this for me. Her fiction is adorable and you should all go take a look.


	3. The Secret Source of Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamao overhears some more secrets and tries to find a quiet place to calm down. It goes sideways.

Tamao, unable to think, strode over to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. She was not thinking when she opened the door, nor when she stepped past the threshold, nor when she pushed the panel closed behind her.

Then, when her mind finally started turning again, she found herself near tears. She could not hold them back: two thin waterfalls sliced her cheeks as she slumped over to the ground, as if someone had just cut her wires.

“Hey, hey, Tamao!” Conchi lowered himself to her level, his eyes wide with worry. “Are you okay? She didn’t scold you while we weren’t there, did she?”

She shook her head, but could not stop the tears. She was just tired, was her reasoning. These were the end result of ten nights spent having nightmares and being unable to sleep. The pictures, the smells, the terror were always the same. She could barely breathe in the darkness coating her thoughts. She had begun to feel ill when smelling grilled meat, and seeing white cars randomly made her shiver. And she always felt like crying. She had held back as long as she could, but now it was too much, and she could not stop it. It was like a huge dam that was suddenly breaking behind her eyes, or perhaps above her heart.

She was still scared, of course, because they believed her, and if they believed her then Yoh was in real danger, but she was also relieved, oh so relieved: they believed her, she had not gone mad, she wouldn’t have to fight the entire world to make herself heard. When Yohmei listened, with a pale, perplex face, and called Kino, she felt something lifted from her chest. When Kino appeared, not showing in the least that she had just crossed over a thousand miles to hear her, and declared not wanting to eat or rest before she knew what Tamao had to say, the young girl had felt her world tighten painfully. And now... Now the tension that was growing ever since her first vision ebbed slowly, and she decided a few tears were worth the relief. They were good tears.

Once they were all but dried up, Tamao rose back to her feet and started washing her hands and her face. The blood had dried on her palms, and rubbing the soap in hurt a bit, but she refused to stop. The pain was almost welcome. It seemed like something she could control, in the midst of things she could not.

Her spirits were still pestering her, but it was almost hard to hear them. Like her ears had been filled with water. In the end, she found it in her to give them a pale smile in the mirror. Her own voice seemed so small, so hoarse after having gone over her limits to talk to Yohmei and Kino. She who spoke so little had gone to impossible lengths to make her voice as loud as it could be, and to not stutter so much, and that was exhausting. “Conchi, Ponchi... I’m fine. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

They were looking at her as if she had grown a second head. “Tam...”

“It’s - it’s nothing, really. I am happy... Happy that Kino believed me. And that you two believe me. And... I don’t know what happens next, but I still...”

She did not finish. She had no more tears, but a remnant of anxiety. A small one.

Her two spirits looked at each other.

“Hey, don’t worry. That Hao boy, we’re going to swallow him whole!"

"Obviously! I’m pretty sure his are super small. He’s nothing to us!"

"They’re nothing to ours...”

They devolved into a fit of giggles. Tamao opened her mouth to protest, grew a bit flushed, and then a bit more. “I... I don’t want to have this conversation."

"Aw, come on, you’ve seen him! You know if they’re...”

Now beet red, the young girl burst out of the bathroom. Once she saw that they were not following, she slowed down, took a deep breath, and started walking more slowly and silently. To get to her room, she needed to move past the one where she and Kino had just talked; Tamao did not want to be caught running in the hallways like a child if the older woman was still around. Especially since she could hear voices on the other side of the paper wall...

She did not intend on stopping - she really didn’t - it was not proper and she had been raised better than that... And yet her steps slowed down in front of the door. Then she moved past it, and stilled behind a pillar, making sure that her shadow couldn’t be seen through the wall.

“I hope you did not scare her too much,” someone said. Yohmei. “She’s still very young to discover all of this..."

"Is that an underhanded way of asking me what I told her?”

There was a short silence.

“You know me a bit too well, it seems.”

Kino laughed, a short, smoky sound. “Do I need to lecture you, too? I told her enough so she could understand what she’s seeing, so she could make the difference between what’s important and what’s not. I told her Hao was old, so that he would not fool her. I told her he was the source of our power, and of our shame. I told her who he is.”

“But you did not tell her he was reborn as our Yoh’s brother, this time.

“Does it matter?”

There was another moment of silence. Tamao, on edge, squeezed herself further against the beam. Yoh’s... brother?

“Tamao cares for our grandson a lot..."

"Who doesn’t? She wants to protect Yoh. We all do. I just want to make sure she doesn’t tell him. You know how he is: if he knew, he would start to imagine things, to think it’s his duty to appease Hao and bring him home.”

“You seem rather confident...”

“Even if he wasn’t doing it for himself, he would do it for Keiko.” And this time the silence lasted longer, and was more painful. “He doesn’t know why she is the way she is, or why our family can’t bear to live together. He would think it’s because of Hao.”

“He would be right.”

“But there’s nothing he can do about that, is there?” Kino had grown sharp. “Even if Hao suddenly turned sweet as a lamb and came back here, Mikihisa would still be climbing all over the country, I would still be busy with Osorezan, and Keiko would still be locked in her own head. Yoh would completely misunderstand the situation, because just like her he is a good person: he would see Hao as a brother and not as his ancestor, even though it’s the other way around. And that mistake would kill him.”

Tamao could not bear to listen anymore. As discretly as she could, she made her way back up the hallway to the staircase and climbed up to her room. To say she had felt guilty for eavesdropping on Kino’s phone call... Of course, the matriarch had promised she would say all that could be of use to her, and no more, but she still felt like she had been lied to. Kino surely thought she was doing good, but Tamao refused to believe that this one bit of information should be held from her. Not when Hao rose in her dreams, looking every bit like Yoh. Not when, in spite of what they thought they were doing, she was thrown in the midst of this nightmare all on her own and had to understand how to stop it also on her own.

She barely had time to prepare her bed before the dreams took her.

* * *

However, if Hao and the stranger were in them, their memory vanished with the morning. She was up before dawn, like Yohmei asked. First she prepared breakfast for the whole house. Kino did not come by often; she needed everything readied to her tastes, and though she was by no mean difficult, she expected a lot. Not that she shouldn’t.

Once she was satisfied with how clean the house looked, and how far along she was in her cooking, Tamao went back to her room and put on her misogi clothes. Purification through water. She had been scared of the idea at first, or to be honest she had been scared of not being strong enough to withstand the bite of the icy water, the violence of the liquid walls falling over her shoulders, like a giant knocking her into the ground. But now that she knew she could bear it, now that she was not scared anymore, it could almost be pleasant. Under the noisy falls, it was almost impossible to think, and impossible to be afraid. The only thing that remained was prayer.

“Ponchi, Conchi, I trust you two will be good while I’m not here,” she warned, before tying the white band over her hair. “And if I see the slightest hint of an ear, or a tail...”

“Ahah, she said tail!”

“She said tail!”

“Oh, come on! Shut up!"

And before they could find another way to make fun of her, Tamao started on the way to the falls, her sandals clicking against the paved pathway. After a while she calmed and slowed down, deciding that the ritual she was about to accomplish required a nobler approach. She had ordered her spirits to stay behind, and she did not believe them mean enough to disobey a direct and reasonable order. Then again, they were naughty beyond belief...

Once at the waterfall, she left her thoughts behind and started to pray. Her eyes fell closed while she shook her hands in front of her. Once she felt herself reach inner peace, she went to fetch some salt, threw it in the water, and slid under the cascading liquid. Her words flew out of her, and her legs locked in place naturally. The water hit her shoulders, and she raised her head. Pride did not belong in this place, but she was still proud to feel as if the fall accepted her. Water fell, ever the same, cold, violent, steadfast. It did not throw down the deserving souls who came to ask the spirits to purify them. It was harsh but fair.

Tamao opened her eyes again. The sun was rising behind the trees, over there somewhere in the forest where the water ran. In her throat rose a gulp of hope. Kino would teach her to control her dreams. And once she knew how to read them, she would be able to save Yoh, and the girl, and all the humans Hao was threatening, and...

She had seen something. There, just beyond the water. It was like... A shadow... Her cheeks turned crimson. Conchi and Ponchi wouldn’t have dared, would they? Feeling rage course through her veins, she dislodged herself from under the curtain of water and looked for them. They weren’t there. First she thought it was just a flicker of the light, but then she saw a strange face in the middle of the trees. She could barely distinguish skin from wood because the former was so pale, and sliced through with dark strands of hair. Was it a ghost? If so, it was not one she knew... But it wasn’t. The face belonged to Keiko. What was she doing here? It was not like her to get out of the mansion, and especially not to take walks in the forest.

And...

And Keiko was staring, and Tamao did not know how to react. The fabric of her clothes clung to her skin, heavy with water.

Soon the cold made itself known to her. She had broken her concentration. When she stepped back under the waterfall, she wasn’t paying attention anymore: she put her foot on a slippery rock, and she fell under. In her surprise she breathed in a big gulp and was mashed against the ground. Her head hit something. Then the chaos threw her forward. She rolled over and over until up was down and she could no longer make sense of anything. Everywhere she looked was greenish and dark. Her arms flung uselessly around. Her lungs felt like they were about to explode. She saw dark spots... She was about to lose consciousness when her hand caught a rock –

  
_Walls of green swallowed her and started to shiver, as if breathed on by an invisible giant. Tamao curled in on herself, holding Jeanne’s head close to her chest as if to hide her from the gaze she felt on them, through the green, through the walls themselves._

  
_A violent gust of wind started to make her ears ring. Her heart tightened, kneaded into a small ball by a sudden fear, a fear that had no reason except all of them. She feared like a prey fears when cornered in the forest, ears ringing with the sound of the horn and legs hurting from the bites of the hounds. And in her ears, the prey heard, clear as ice:_ the king is awake _._

– pain shot through her wrist and Tamao managed to get upright again. Her chin broke through to the air: she breathed. The stream was weaker where she was now, but she still struggled, batting her legs to stay above the surface. She did not have to swim when she went through misogi. She just slid in from the bank and stood there. She had never expected to actually fall in, and now she was paying the price.

By some miracle, her uninjured hand locked on a branch, and the current pushed her to the bank. Coughing and choking she rose, and discovered that her left hand – the one that had touched the riverbed – wasn’t really responding. Her wrist was red, and it hurt; she swallowed a whine when she touched it. To top it all off, she had lost her sandals. Keeping in her tears, she raised her head, looking for Keiko. She could not find her.

She was on her own, drenched to the bone, and covered in mud.

Tears rose once again to her eyes, and Tamao started back. But that wasn’t the way prepared for the ceremony, and the trail was covered in treacherous needles and sharp rocks. The young girl felt despair nest within her stomach. Even if she did her best to ignore the pain, and she could do that, it would take her much longer to get home than it should have. How long? She couldn't tell. And since she told Ponchi and Conchi to stay away, they would not come and see...

Biting back a sob, she started walking. What was it but one more trial? If such a small thing stumped her, how could she hope to change the future?

* * *

 

“Tamao!”

The house came into view when she heard the first call. Conchi and Ponchi, who hovered near the door, zoomed over to her side. “Are you okay? Where were you? Why did it take you so long?”

Then Kino, surprisingly fast, made her way over, and chased them off with her cane. “Give her some space to breathe, you two. She’s drenched. Go fetch a towel!”

The two spirits did not try to protest, instead vanishing within the house while Kino looked Tamao over. Her teeth were chattering. She had noticed a bit late that she lost her scarf in the water, so she had gone back to find it, and hadn’t, and so it took her the whole morning to actually come home.

“What happened?” The old woman had seemingly finished her examination, and, having found no obvious wound apart from her sprained wrist, was starting to wonder. “Another dream?”

Tamao shook her head. She should probably have thought up an explanation on the way, but she hadn’t; it was like her brain had emptied itself to fight the cold. As she faced the blind gaze of the old woman, she blinked, struggling to find an answer.  
Kino waited.

Tamao opened her mouth.

“I... Fell. In the river.”

Kino waited a bit more.

Tamao closed her mouth.

Kino sighed.

“I see. Well, let’s head back. You won’t be much help if you die of pneumonia. And old mad Yohmei who wanted to start testing your dreams today...”

Tamao paled. They could have started today? He hadn’t said anything. If she had known... She would still have fallen in, surely, but she would have come back running, as fast as she could, to start right then and there, and... She was tearing up again.

“Come, come, we’ll have to do something for your hand,” Kino gruffily added, tugging her inside. “Get changed and come under the _kotatsu_. Sui prepared curry and sweets all for you...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this comes so late, summer was eventful! Hopefully I can build a steady rhythm. Any criticism and comments are appreciated!
> 
> I researched the misogi a lot, and I also looked deep into the different sorts of Shamans and beliefs in the Asakura family. It's not really clear, and since I don't read kanjis I can't really go to Japanese sources, but I have friends who help.
> 
> The "she said tail" bit works better in French, because the same word is even more unequivocally a euphemism for the peen ("queue"), but it kind of works, so here it is.


	4. Before I Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My son,” Keiko repeated. “You saw him. In your dreams, you saw him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's title comes from a lovely poem by Robert Frost. The characters, places and setting come from Hiroyuki Takei's work. The scenario and words are mine. I just want to see who stubs their toe first when stuck in total darkness.

Wasting time wasn’t in Kino’s vocabulary.

As soon as she stepped into the Asakura mansion, she took the reins. Her own spirits lent their appendices to her husband’s, taking care of the house to give some leeway to Tamao. Said Tamao had been ordered to pay attention to her dreams and to write every new bit of information in her notebook. Not that she could read it, and the others had not tried; they trusted her enough to believe she would share anything relevant, as well as the rest. They wanted her to sleep and dream more, as soon as she felt the need, and even when she didn’t.

Since she had started talking about her dreams, she felt like she had been able to truly rest. Her nights were void of both light and dreams. It was as if everything stopped before it even began. Maybe she had been wrong and the nightmares had just been that: nightmares. She hadn’t said _that_ to Kino, not yet, but though she had yet to face her disappointment she could already feel it all over her.

As for Yohmei, he’d started digging through the family archive. Reading the future was a talent long-cultivated by the Asakura family, and the tradition of marrying off the men to itakos was just meant to strengthen it. Those in the family who were into archiving the great deeds of the family had written about theirs in detail, and several times Yohmei had thought he found cases similar to Tamao’s: family members –often youngsters– plagued by visions and dreams, to the point of being unable to sleep and nearly wasting away. Some managed to keep their nightmares at bay, and some kept them from coming to life, like that young nephew of Yohken who had told him who the mad Patch member really was, and what he would have to sacrifice to keep him away from the throne. But nobody seemed able to answer the real question: where did these dreams come from? Why now? Why her and not Anna, or Kino, or even the girl from her dreams?

In order to get answers, Kino had decided that they should test Tamao’s abilities in depth. And the first way she’d found was a training meant to help Tamao go beyond her shamanic limitations, in the hopes of getting control over her visions. Tamao was... Unconvinced, to say the least. The idea of getting a training made with her in mind was both frightening and electrifying. She did not like fighting, and violence even less, but she had directly experienced the utter despair of powerlessness, and she wanted to never feel it again. If she could help Yoh, even just a bit, and the strange girl, and everyone else... She would do anything. Hence why she was in the middle of the courtyard at dawn. Instead of preparing breakfast or starting on her housecleaning duties, she was about to fight Yohmei’s creations in front of Kino. 

Yohmei had been told to push her a little, but when he had seen how nervous she was, he had tried to put her at ease. It was not working very well, but it was nice. Seeing that he was smiling was nice, seeing that he fought to keep his voice soft was embarrassing, seeing that he strove to give her long but useful explanations... Almost made her smile, which considering how nervous she was was a bit of a miracle. She would remember it.

“Well, let’s begin. We’ll start off soft. Don’t be impressed by what you see; focus on your Over-Soul and everything will be okay.”

Tamao nodded bravely and gathered her spirits. For now, she didn’t feel any different, but how would she know? She knew so many stories of Shamans revealing their true powers right at the crucial moment, when they were on their last legs, when the last drops of energy left their body. She really, really did not want to disappoint Yohmei and Kino. And Yoh, too, maybe, because after all, if she became a useful ally for him, a really useful one, he would be happy, right? He would probably talk to her more. She could get a little of his light, just for her.

That was enough to make her bold. Raising her gaze to Yohmei, she nodded to show she was ready, and buried deep the need to run. She who hated to fight and hated to be seen would have to bear these two things, as long as it took for Kino to see what she wanted to see, as long as it took to ensure she would never see what she had dreamed of coming true. If but one of her abilities could save them, how dare she not develop it? 

“Let’s go,” Yohmei said, as if from really far away. Dead leaves on the ground immediately burst into flames, revealing small spirits with multiple heads and lying smiles.

Tamao raised her  crossbow and aimed for her first attacker. She had fought such enemies in the past, and did it pretty often. She was more than able to take care of them; Yohmei was keeping his promise and started slow. One more reason to do well.

As she shot the small spirits, the young girl started to move, going across the yard to avoid being encircled or pushed into a dead end. Of course, turning her back to Yohmei would not be smart, and she couldn’t forget that she was fighting a Shaman on top of his spirits, but she knew how to deal with that.

The small spririts gradually turned to bigger, heavier, more monstruous ones. Her crossbow was fast, but Tamao felt like she was barely slowing down Yohmei, and never really clearing the field, even for a moment. The more monsters were shot, the more their brethen appeared from the earth, and she wasn’t making any progress. 

And since she wasn’t making any progress, she made a mistake.

A wrongly-timed jump got her landing on the wrong side of her foot, and she lost her balance. Her still-sensitive wrist made her gasp, but she held on to her Over-Soul.

The largest spirits immediately ran to her, all claws out. Tamao raised her shield, knowing she did not have enough time to rise or fight back before they got to her –

The closest spirit’s paw fell down on her shield. The move pushed Tamao back and sent vibrations through her whole arm up to her ear, but she managed to hold. The next spirit cleaved the shield neatly in two with a claw as thick as her ankle, right in front of her face. Her Over-Soul exploded. 

Yohmei immediately called his spirits back. Tamao, now alone in the yard, remained on the ground for a good while. Her breathing took time to quiet down, and she did not rise right away, waiting for her elders’ verdict. Not that she couldn’t guess by herself how little progress she had made...

“Is everything okay? You’re not hurt?”

Yohmei was kind, as always. She shook her head while the old man helped her up and to Kino’s side.

“You are progressing as expected,” she declared quietly. Tamao was too astonished to reply. “There is no brutal jump – not as far as your fighting skills are concerned, at least. But I can see that you followed Mikihisa’s training to the letter, and you are not slacking off. Very good.”

Tamao, in spite of herself, felt her cheeks redden as she sat down on the porch. “T-thanks,” she replied quietly, before jumping a little at the sound of Kino’s cane hitting the ground.

“Do not thank me. This is not my doing! You are the one who chose to follow the training right, and you are the one who worked for this. Do not thank me for the truth,” she scolded, clearly annoyed at Tamao’s lack of understanding.

Tamao grew even redder and lowered her head. “I’m... sorry...”  
“Enough! There is one last test I want to conduct this morning. Get your ouija board out.”

Tamao obeyed and placed it between Kino and herself. Her throat was too tight for her to talk, but her face made it clear that she did not know what they expected. Yohmei saw that much.

“We now know that this is not about you getting more powerful in general. But perhaps the gift you did receive can be channeled with the help of your spirits.”

Tamao said nothing. She wasn’t sure she understood. After all, there was no connection between her dreams and her usual abilities...

“Tamao, your visions came through your dreams, and not your board, correct?” She nodded, deciding to ignore how precisely the old man – and without a doubt his wife–  could read her thoughts. “Maybe they expressed themselves as such because they could not otherwise. In that case, maybe if you reach out to our house spirits through your board, you will lure the dreams to the surface, and...”  
“Enough chitchat. Tamao, use your ouija board,” Kino dryly added. Tamao nervously glanced at her spirits. They had been good til then, but... She did not know how long _that_ would last. Her gaze begged them to play nice while she reached for her wood planchette.

Then she stilled. How was she supposed to bring the visions to her? 

“Ask them who the girl is,” was Yohmei’s suggestion. He was smiling. “Maybe asking something less important first would help you.”

Tamao looked at them from underneath her bangs. The stranger’s identity? Not important? He didn’t know how wrong he was.

Taking her silence for a lack of understanding, he continued: “You know, the one Hao kills...”

His sentence was like an icy wind on Tamao. In her head, it became crucial to tell Yohmei that no, the girl did not die in her dream, she just fell _asleep_ in Hao’s arms, but she held it in. She wasn’t even sure why it was important to say it. The other girl was just a stranger, right? A stranger who held the key to this odd mystery.

Feeling her throat tighten up, she nodded, and after a deep breath she questioned her spirits.

The wood planchette started moving, and Tamao held her breath. Would she finally learn her name? She started saying what they wrote aloud:

“K-Kino when she... Was young and beau... what?”

Tamao paled as she understood the joke and hit the planchette, ousting her spirits. Very pleased with their joke, they ran off below the porch floorboards. Their mistress, silent and still, felt thoroughly unable to raise her head and face the two adults in front of her.

“Well, then...”

“I think we’re done for today,” Kino sighed, rising without waiting for her husband’s sentence to end. Yohmei followed her suit, squeezing Tamao’s shoulder for reassurance as he went. Again, it did not work very well, but that simple squeezing was just enough to keep her from breaking into sobs.

Instead she rose and bowed deeply. “I will do my best to improve,” she said, in spite of the turmoil within her. “I know we don’t have much time, but I will not fail you.”

Kino nodded gravely. “I know you will.”

\---

If there was a way to put out laundry to dry in an aggressive manner, Tamao had found it. Her spirits were seriously beginning to regret their prank, because she refused to talk to them, and they could just _tell_ she was preparing a wicked punishment just for the two of them.

“Come on, Tam, you know we were just playing.”

“And Yohmei completely got it, I saw it, his eyes were smiling!”

Tamao tugged a bit harshly on the sheet, making a rather harsh smacking sound.

“And Kino knows us, she won’t hold it against you, she knows what to expect. We pranked her so bad when she first arrived here and we haven’t told you any of it...”  
“Yeah! And it’s been centuries since we’re in the family! They don’t expect you to change who we are...”

Tamao dropped a clothespin. She angrily moved to get it back, going right through Ponchi without a care for his protests. Then she moved back and started on the second pair of sheets.

“Tamao...”  
“Oh, will the two of you just _stop_? You... It... It wasn’t nice at all. I’m upset. Really upset,” she insisted, staring at them both like unruly kids. “But that’s not important. I’m going to focus on my dreams, and... And on my training. That’s what matters.”

Her two spirits looked at each other , still sheepish.

“Listen, Tam...”

“No, no, your excuses - your apologies are not important. If... If you want to apologize, help me during training, instead of making me look stupid.”

They both nodded. Tamao let them play around the sheets as she finished draping them over the clotheslines. When they weren’t doing it in public, it was rather cute. And sometimes  – only sometimes  – funny.

Soon enough, though, her thoughts narrowed down on the visions again. She hadn’t had any since speaking with Kino –  except if she counted that of the river, but was it really one? So few details, so few answers... The only thing that always seemed the same was that the stranger was always in them. A stranger that called to her through time, and seemed so close she saw her everywhere....

Even... Even now, she realized. Through the white sheets she was still pinning up, she could see an odd silhouette that could have belonged to her. It was almost like she had been painted on the fabric. Wind played in her hair, making it look like soft cotton. She must be right behind the sheet...

Tamao almost pictured it, her stranger appearing in between the white screens. But the shadow on the fabric was tall, so tall... Way too tall.

“Who are...?”

The end of her sentence died on her lips. The woman behind the fabric wasn’t the stranger from her dreams. It was Keiko. Keiko with her eyes both piercing and glazed over, Keiko and her bird of prey’s face, Keiko who’d left her in the cold water of the river without warning anyone.

Tamao instinctively took a step back. She opened her mouth, tried to apologize, and did not manage to say anything. She had left her board on the patio, much too far to just grab it; and she had been speaking so much that day... She couldn’t handle another talk.

“You saw my son,” Keiko said. “You saw my son?”

Tamao swallowed. Yoh? Did she think Yoh was home? But he wasn’t expected home for... weeks! Had her visions brought him home early? Yohmei and Kino had said nothing of the sort! She wasn’t at all ready to talk about it to Yoh! Why did no one warn her?

Keiko pushed the sheet from them both and stepped closer, an absent smile on her lips. “My son...”  
“I  – I didn’t see it,” Tamao mumbled, looking at her feet. “You... You should ask...”  
“Look at me.” The Asakura heiress’s tone had gone cold in a second, and it rung out like a command. Tamao obeyed out of sheer instinct, and regretted it immediately. Keiko’s gaze was simply impossible to face.

“How is he? 

Tamao opened her mouth, closed it, and lowered her eyes. That was a bad plan, and she realized it immediately. Keiko let out an annoyed sigh, and placed her hands – both as cold as a corpse’s – on Tamao’s cheeks, locking her chin in place. Her nails grazed eyelids before following the curves of her face. Tamao worried about what would happen if she were to sneeze, or even swallow. She remained very still when Keiko forcibly raised her chin, with just enough pressure so that Tamao could imagine her tearing her head off.

Then, just as fast as they had clamped over her face, the brunette’s hands released her, and moved down to her neck and shoulders. Keiko seemed to be testing the solidity of her bones, weighting her muscles like one would weight a piece of fish on the market. Tamao was too terrified to protest, or even ask what the other wanted. Her heart beat like a drum in her chest, and she wondered if Keiko could see it –  or if she was looking for it, if she meant to open her up with her nails and tear it out.

“My son,” Keiko repeated. “You saw him. In your dreams, you saw him.”

A cold sweat broke out on Tamao’s back. Keiko meant _Hao._ She tried to step back, in vain.

With a strange smile, Keiko gathered Tamao in her arms. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him... But you will bring him back, now.”

Her embrace was cold and rigid. The adult’s white kimono made for a large deadly shroud that wrapped around Tamao like her sheets, and tightened over her until she could barely breathe. More than her arms, though, it was Keiko’s words that crushed her, and what she sensed in them. The son she was talking about... Wasn’t Yoh. Obviously. _There_ was the key, it wasn’t Yoh she so desperately wanted to find, but her other son, the one who had been stolen from her. The one who killed with a smile and who made fire sing. Keiko thought  – hoped  –  _demanded_ that Tamao be able to reach the heart of a thousand years-old Shaman, that she bring back the wolf back into the pen and turn him back into a sheep. It was absurd, impossible, and Tamao was convinced in her core that Keiko was absolutely serious. Such a heavy burden. Much heavier that ensuring both Yoh’s and the stranger’s survival could ever be.

Nausea suddenly welled up within Tamao, and she roughly pushed Keiko back.

“I – I’m sorry!”

Once she threw these words at Keiko, using them more like stones than an apology, she ran away. She ran out of the backyard, and then out of the mansion area, and she continued to run until she reached the small clearing they used for the misogi ceremonies. Out of breath, Tamao sat down on the stone bench there, and lied down. She could no longer control her breathing, and the world turned around her. The noise of the water seemed out of sync with the rest of it. It was booming in her ears, and with a whine she tried to cover them.

She did not even notice she was falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you thought! I love feedback, and English isn't my mother tongue, so I'm always interested in the way my work appears to English speakers!


	5. Perching in Your Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamao dreams again. This time she sees something new and is offered some hope to carry her through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shaman King is not mine. I just want to see who scares me most when I give them good reason to.
> 
> The title comes from Emily Dickinson’s "Hope is the thing with feathers".

It was like rising from a deep smog, a dream, grey and odorless. Tamao didn’t remember how they had left the bloody road. She couldn’t tell if she had been cold or warm, if her shoes slipped on the moist ground, if she had cried a long time. But just like that she was following Hao in a dark and freezing hallway, and they reached a small room where the roof had caved in, as if a giant’s fist had come down right above their heads.

The place reeked of violence and burnt greenery. Everything seemed really to fall apart, and Tamao could not stop the shivers coursing through her body. But Hao seemed confident, and he was carrying Jeanne, so she had to follow him in.

They went through a few rooms by climbing over debris. Hao seemed in no way bothered by the long metal bars threatening to gut him at a moment of inattention, nor by the few bricks of cement still standing, which could fall at any moment on the two of them. Whenever they needed to climb or sneak by to avoid dangerous falls or cuts, though, he slowed down, almost as if to let Tamao follow him without lagging behind.

After a while, they arrived to a relatively untouched room. It was a bit further away from the rest of the building, which probably explained why it hadn’t been destroyed by the same thing that had laid waste everywhere else, though it wasn’t pristine either. The walls were cracked, and there was a giant gap where the stones had fallen out. She could see the cloudy sky beyond the debris.

Hao stopped by an oddly preserved mattress, and turned towards her. “Sit here. The mattress will protect you from the cold.”

Tamao stilled and realized he was right to mention it: her whole body was trembling. Because of the cold or her fatigue? She wouldn’t be able to say. Her brain felt like it was still numb, and, after only a short hesitation she obeyed, leaning against the wall.

Then Hao leaned down and laid Jeanne down, her head on Tamao’s lap.

Said Tamao was too surprised to say anything. The sheer proximity with Hao, after what he had just done, terrified her all over again, and she remained still, instinctively playing dead.

He pretended not to notice. Getting back to his feet, he lit up a huge fire in the center of the room and stepped out.

And just like that, Tamao was alone.

For a moment only, she feared that the entire room would go up in flames, that Jeanne and her own self would be engulfed without ever having the time to scream. But it seemed those were tame. Even though they weren’t caged in, they remained in the very middle of the room. The light created long dancing shadows on the cracked bunker walls and on Jeanne’s mute face.

Tamao mechanically started to brush her hair, though she was not sure who she meant to comfort. Jeanne did not seem like she was having a nightmare.

Tamao was still struggling to understand what had just happened, both in front of her and on the island. Hao had just won the tournament. Not officially, not yet, but it was a done thing. The only people who stood a chance were gone. And he had achieved that so easily, like he was negligently swatting ants with the back of his hand. Just a snap of the fingers.  _Funbari Onsen_ , gone,  _The Ren_ , gone,  _Nyorai_  and  _X-One_ , gone, gone, all gone. In a moment, in an hour, so many people had died… Yoh…

No thinking about that. If she did, she would think about him and them burning like Marco and Lyserg burned, and she would scream, and she would never stop. And Jeanne...

The knot in her throat tightened. The Iron Maiden felt so small in her arms. It was like holding a human-sized doll. Her hair was soft as silk. Even her skin, in spite of the many silvery scars, seemed to have been cut from precious fabric. And she was so light… like a dream, said a voice in Tamao. A dream you could wave off with your hand. A dream you could snuff out like a candle.

The sound of footsteps made her jump. Hao was coming back. He had a bowl in his hands. Tamao stared, still unable to break free of her silence or the dark numb cloth currently wrapped around her heart. She wasn’t sure what to feel or think. She, too, he had destroyed. Why was she still moving, then?

Because someone had to watch over Jeanne. Because Jeanne was asleep but alive, and Hao was still a threat to her, and Tamao wanted her to live. For now, here ended the thought, but it was enough.

If her reaction – or absence of reaction – surprised Hao, he showed no sign of it and did not comment, simply coming to sit down opposite her, behind the fire. The distance was ridiculous considering his power, but it still calmed her down a little. Perhaps because it showed he did not intend on attacking her right away.

Tamao’s gaze fell on one damaged corner of the mattress. She knew Hao was looking at her, but she did not feel ready to face him quite yet. Instead, she let the silence grow deeper and stared at the fire, focusing on ‘not shivering’.

The flames formed a big enough bouquet that she was almost over-clothed with her jeans, but she did not complain, not only because she feared how Hao would react, but also because of the precious burden lying in her lap. Jeanne had not opened her eyes, but her body had grown warmer since Hao had put her there, and Tamao figured she needed the warmth.

Small beeps soon broke the silence. Tamao discreetly glanced at the brunette and noticed that he was messing with his Oracle Bell. The angle kept her from seeing the screen, but she could well guess what he was doing: he surely wanted to read the reports of his bloody victory and gloat. Maybe he would even share the gritty details with her.

“Ah,” he said, cutting right through her thoughts. “That ought to cheer you up.”

Frowning, Tamao felt her brain struggle immensely to understand what he had just said, and understand what he meant. Cheer her up? How?

Before she could react, Hao continued: “You’ll be happy to know that both Funbari Onsen and The Ren are up and fighting again. Nyorai will certainly be the fourth team to come on Mû.

The words seemed to come from far, far away. Through the flames she couldn’t really see Hao’s lips move, so it was as if he wasn’t the one speaking: they came watery and blurred, and she could barely understand them. Her ears buzzed. He said _Funbari?_ But...

He stared, with a vague reptilian glint to his eyes. He must have taken pity on her, though, because he nodded, and said: “Faust and good Ren’s older sister are full of surprises, it seems. He managed to revive Sâti and my brother while Jun took care of The Ren. X-One is the only one permanently taken out.”

He spoke so lightly of it all... Tamao should have been happy to know Yoh alive, to know that hope still existed, and it would come, later, when Yoh found her and she could have a good cry in Anna’s arms, but for now the being curled on her lap came first. Why would Jeanne care to know the other teams were fine? Hers, like Hao said, was ‘taken out’. What a detestable euphemism. So. Jeanne had no one and would not be on Mû.

And… and so couldn’t do anything against Hao anymore. Mû was far too close for her to stop his plans in any other way. She would be stuck on the bench, helpless, _harmless_.

Hope is a cruel beast, with a venom much stronger than any other. Before she could stop herself, she asked: “So you’re going to... Let us go?”

As she said the words, Tamao realized she hated it. It was horrible to speak like that, to _think_ like that, but she was lucid. If Hao was against it, neither Jeanne nor she would get out of this place, alive or not.

“You know, you are completely free to go, Tamao,” he said, his piercing gaze falling right on her. There was no irony in his eyes, no judgment. No kindness, either. “You followed me here out of your own free will.”

That… may have been right, but they both knew it wasn’t what she was concerned about. “What about… her?”

Hao looked at the body sleeping against Tamao, still seemingly very calm. The Iron Maiden had not moved at all since he had put her there.

“It’s pretty easy to see she’s sleeping. She wouldn’t be able to follow you.” And to go where, he seemed to say without having to say it. There was no one left to take care of Jeanne. Tamao frowned. That… was actually false.

“The... The other team,” she managed to mumble. “The, uh, X-II. They will take care of her.” She remembered the shared meal, the food fight, the raw anger of these X-II, so swiftly extinguished by just one of Jeanne’s smiles. Yes. Even if they resented what Marco had done, they would take care of her until she awoke. And she would definitely be happier knowing she slept with them rather than Hao...

Said Hao gave her a merciful smile. “I doubt they would be able to, right now. See, the ones who caused all this mess attacked this place,” he explained, gesturing at the blackened walls. “The X-II were behind that attack.”

Acid filled Tamao’s stomach. She could guess how that story ended. Nevertheless, when she looked at the walls, she couldn’t help but... hope. To be able to cause that much damage, the X-II must have been very strong...

“They all came from the same team, did you know that? In the US army. You could smell it on them,” Hao said, very calmly. “The same attention to detail, the same _folie des grandeurs_. Their leader even hijacked a military satellite to attack the building... Without even considering whether there could be innocents inside. Had he struck a few hours later, he could have attacked you, and her.” He smiled and moved his hand closer to the flames, as if feeding on their warmth.

Tamao understood. “The white light?  
-Yes.”

She remembered the blinding light. It had swallowed the car; Jeanne’s hand had clasped on hers; Marco had tried to brake, and the shrieks of the tires on the rocky path. Without the X-II’s attempt, could Marco have avoided the attack? Could Jeanne have stopped all of this?

Hao had fallen silent, and she didn’t need him to say what had happened to the X-II. Which meant that by killing Marco and Lyserg, Hao had definitely erased the X-Laws from existence, all by his hand. Except Jeanne. Why? Why bring her here, why put her to sleep, why…?

“What did you do to her?” Her voice had a confident, hard edge to it that surprised her, but Hao did not seem offended. He kept the same vague smile as he put down his Oracle Bell and gazed at his prisoners. Because even if Tamao _had_ followed him willingly, it definitely wasn’t the case for Jeanne.

He finally answered: “You’d make for a very good big sister, you know? Oh, I don’t pretend to know much about the subject, but… As I said, you don’t have to care about that. You can go right now. Yoh must be worried.”

Something within Tamao caught fire, and before she could even think it through her mouth was open and her words flowing:

“I won’t let you – not as long as she – as she’s like this. Not as long as she can’t... Protect herself.”

Again, his smile coated with irony. He could barely contain his arrogant laughter in his dark eyes. These eyes she found so beautiful on Yoh, where they would never take _this_ shine. Tamao felt the foreign need to tear them off him run through her brain. She who hated to fight…

“You might have to wait a while. Who knows for how long little Jeanne will have to sleep?”

It ought to have terrified her, and in some sense it did, but Tamao refused to let him trap her in her own fear. “I – I was right. You did do something to her.”  
“So little. And for her own good, if I may add.”

Tamao could mask neither her disbelief nor her anger at seeing him joke about such a dark subject. Was he about to say he had them attacked because he was just so nice, too?

“What’s... Going to happen to her?”

Hao looked at her, and then down at Jeanne. “I don’t have the slightest idea.” A few seconds went by, and Tamao thought he would stop there. She could have screamed. He went on: “Well, I could surely have an idea or two, if I wanted, just like you could. But I would rather not influence you.”  
“Influence me?”

Instead of answering, Hao moved his head into the flames and brought back a few sparks that lit up the quickly-darkening room. “May I tell you that leaving one of your spirits with Manta so that Anna would know what happened wasn’t such a good plan?”

Taken aback, Tamao frowned. Yes, now that he mentioned it, she vaguely remembered giving such an order to Conchi, so that Manta wouldn’t remain alone and unconscious in a field of death, so that Anna wouldn’t be left clueless. At that time, she thought the _itako_ would be one of the few people left alive. Of course, now that she knew Yoh was still alive… Perhaps it was even better to have left Conchi behind. Maybe he wouldn’t be as angry against Hao now, wouldn’t think she, too, was dead on the altar of madness raised by his twin. In any case, even with both of her spirits, she wouldn’t be able to face Hao on her own. So if she could at least help Yoh to the best of her abilities…

“Hungry?”

Tamao raised her head, feeling like he’d just speared her out of her thoughts. He _was_ talking to her, yes, and he _was_ asking a question, but she could not… tie this caring Hao back to the one who destroyed everything without a second thought. Was that caring? Certainly not. She shook her head, keeping her mouth shut.

“You need to eat,” he still said, as if he hadn’t seen anything. His tone made it clear he would not have her fight him on it. Tamao did not mean to give in, though, even if she hadn’t eaten in a long time, and had rejected her last meal almost entirely. She confusedly felt the need to stand her ground, to break through the fake amiability he was trying to project.

While she thought this through, and without asking her opinion again, Hao had started working. Tamao did not know how, but he had clear water appear in the bowl. He put in unknown herbs and let them float in the boiling water for a while. He moved with such confidence, such… Tranquility, as he prepared food for one of the weakest Shamans on the island, right after he had – even if just for a while – erased all the best from the map… Tamao felt her eyes sting again, though she didn’t really understand why, and when he put the bowl in her hands she just did not manage to push it back.

For a few seconds, Hao seemed to expect her to dive in.

“If you want to watch over, you’ll need your strength.”

That wasn’t such a faulty logic, so Tamao drank, in small gulps. It wasn’t bad, but not overly good either; it had the merit of filling her stomach with something else than acid. Then, when she was done, she leaned back against wall, still refusing to look at him.

She did not get to know what he thought; she heard neither chuckle nor sigh.

They remained like this, silent and still, for a long while. Tamao could feel her eyes closing, and refused to let them. As long as he would remain in the room, or rather as long as Jeanne would sleep like that, she couldn’t allow herself to rest. What if he...? She couldn’t.

“Sleep, Tamao. I won’t do anything to her,” said a voice in her head. She could barely recognize the words as words: they seemed to come to her like pictures rather than sounds, feelings rather than sentences. Her eyelids were growing heavier. It was almost as if she was hypnotized... “Neither of you has anything to fear from me. Sleep.”

It was as if her body itself heard and heeded the order; Tamao immediately sank into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hao and his bowl of nourishing herbs comes from a really nice fic from Realgya, over there on fanfiction dot net, called "Au creux de la nuit". It's in French. The context is different, but I liked giving her a nod!
> 
> Please tell me what you thought!


	6. Sometimes It Takes Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So? Yes or no, Tamao, it’s not hard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there ! I managed to translate a fair bit of this during NaNo, but… then I need to reread and make it… better, lol. So I’m not making promises on my update speed, but I hope to be a little faster for the coming chapters.
> 
> This chapter's title comes from David Whyte's poetry, which goes: "Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet  
> confinement of your aloneness  
> to learn  
> anything or anyone  
> that does not bring you alive  
> is too small for you."
> 
> This chapter's theme remains Lost, by Within Temptation. Shaman King belongs to Hiroyuki Takei, I'm just playing with his toys.

_Yoh lives. Even in that nightmare, Yoh lives._ _Yoh breathes and Yoh will be able to save her, that poor stranger, and save_ me, _and save the entire world..._

Tamao let out a small sigh and wiped her graphite-colored hand on her jeans before looking towards the sky, feeling not only a little hopeless.

There was no way she could sleep after that. She hadn’t even tried, to be honest; her raging emotions chased her right out of her room. She felt like she had after the first dream, like she’d been hit and thrown about everywhere, leaving her drained and nervous. Except that this time it wasn’t only despair, or shouldn’t have been.

_Yoh lives. Yoh lives. I should be happy, I should be relieved. I should be crying with joy and telling Yohmei and Kino and going back to Mikihisa’s mountains because if Yoh lives then everything will be alright. I should be relieved..._

She wasn’t, far from it. Every time she tried to rejoice, the memory of the strange girl’s sleeping face on her knees came back, joined by that of her two friends falling to ashes, and her heart throbbed again.

Feeling lost and frazzled, she had roamed the halls of the mansions for a while. A nasty thought swirled in her head: she was now Keiko’s double, a ghost sent a-stumbling, unable to see either the dead or the living. It was nasty indeed, and she had ended up on the porch, shivering under her thick scarves but unable to go back to her room. She had her notebook with her, and her pencils, so she put pen to paper, hoping to draw out the madness from her body, to tip it all into her fingers and out of her.

At this hour Conchi and Ponchi were the only source of light. They were being oddly quiet for the moment, perhaps fascinated by the stars, or the faces born through their Shaman’s pencil. They _had_ questioned her, just like they did since the beginning, but they seemed to be getting used to the new Tamao, who didn’t tell them everything she felt and who swam deeper and deeper into silence. Maybe they, too, worried for the future.

First, she wanted to draw Yoh.

It had been a few months since she saw him, and she missed him. She would never have dared confide in him about her dreams, of course, but his presence calmed and quieted her, and she had never needed calm like she did now. He was simply... Shining, like the sun, though he never seemed to notice it. When he came to Izumo, everyone started to gravitate around him: Yohmei, Keiko, Mikihisa, the spirits of the house, Tamao herself…

He always had a kind word and ear for the whole world. He spoke to Keiko even when she didn’t answer, to Tamao even if she was shy, and he was never annoyed or tired: he was patient, and soft, and kind. Of course, his training for the tournament took up most of his time, but once he was too tired to even move, he was all theirs. Not all hers, no, she didn’t deserve that, but _a bit_ hers, and that was enough.

Drawing him usually brought peace to Tamao when she was in doubt. It was a bit like having him with her... But after the first few sketches of the night, Tamao realized that the person appearing under her pencil wasn’t Yoh at all. He had his short hair, he had his necklace and his clothes, but something hard to define forbid the idea that this boy was Yoh. The eyes, perhaps. The eyes...

Yes, it was Hao that she was drawing, Hao disguised as Yoh, like a wolf donning sheep’s clothing. He who she had only seen in dreams forced his way to her paper. Yet he was not really there, he had no power over her; she was the one who was trying to tell herself something through this drawing, and she would only be free of the spell when she finished the telling. 

After admitting what was happening, everything became a bit easier, and she tried to let her hand tell her what it wanted to say. She lengthened the hair, added the earrings, deepened the crease of the smile to make it a bit colder, less innocent. If her pencil meant to tell her something, she wasn’t able to decipher the message. But the mere sight of this man made her nervous, so she turned the page and tried to draw the unknown girl instead.

She did not even know her name yet, but now she knew the weight of her head in her lap, the worrying chill of her skin, the delicate folds of her dress, and it all made Tamao worry for her even more. How did such a fragile princess come to be in this car, amidst those people so ready to tear each other apart?

No, no, that wasn’t the real question, she forgot what her own self told her from the other side of the dream. It was her who tore apart the one coming to kill them, and according to Hao, it wasn’t the first or only time she attacked... Killed someone. And her own soul had not protested when he said it. It was hard, though, to look at this small and thin and broken girl in her icy sleep and think she would do anything like that. How had she reached that level of power, that level of violence? Was she a wolf, too? She couldn’t believe it. But Hao was one, and he was Yoh’s perfect mirror image...

Her sketch, from soft and luminous, became a bit sharper, a bit less charitable. Without having really decided to, she was looking for the source of the violence, of the ability to maim and kill. Her beautiful white eyelashes were queenly, but also cold and icy; her proud forehead was noble, but also arrogant. Then she straightened up and blinked in surprise at her own drawing.

The fragile girl cradled in her arms had completely disappeared.

Tamao had now made her a ferocious warrior, with an almost bloody smear under her lip and a mean streak in her eyes. It didn’t look like the girl from her dreams at all anymore; it was someone else altogether. Even if the unknown girl was a murderer (they had been attacked! She was only defending herself!), she wasn’t... Wasn’t like this thing, this force of destruction born under her pencil. Unless...?

With a sigh, Tamao turned the page again. Maybe trying to honestly draw strangers was a fool’s errand. There would always be a betrayal waiting in the pen, always a lie in every stroke.

Perhaps it was foolish to hope she could capture what she had seen in her dreams on paper.

“Up so early?”

Tamao turned in surprise and watched as Yohmei stepped closer. The old man moved slowly, his eyes on the dying stars. He was already in his day clothes; Tamao wondered, for one worried moment, if he had slept at all. Did he fear for Yoh’s life to the point of losing sleep, too? In that case...

The words stopped just behind her lips, ready to fly out and be heard by him.  _I had another vision, Yoh lives again, I don’t know how but Yoh is revived, or maybe he never died, after all he is_ Yoh, _he can’t die, it was only a dream, a lie, I made it all up..._

Tamao said nothing.

The old man, without showing any hint of annoyance, came to sit beside her on the patio. He didn’t try to look at her drawings. She didn’t really like it when people looked at her drawings, especially without her permission; he knew it, and she liked the fact that he respected her limits without testing them often or running out of patience.

“Anna is on her way,” he said after a while. “Kino told her.”

Tamao gave him a silent and shy nod. To Anna, as well, she would have to speak about her dreams. To her, would she dare talk about what she had just seen, how her vision continued? Would she admit she had scared everybody for what might amount to nothing?

“Ah, but I’ve become a little nutty in my old age. You already know that, since you are eavesdropping, right?”

Tamao’s blood froze in her veins. Kino told him? No, no, he had used the _present_ tense, as if it hadn’t just been Ponchi and Conchi’s game, as if…

“You also know that Yoh and Hao are related,” the old man finished quietly, as if he hadn’t noticed anything. Tamao, frozen in place, did not dare raise her head. Cold sweat seemed to drench her clothes. She should have apologized immediately, but her jaw was locked in an iron vice. He had seen her. He had seen her! And if he had seen her, Kino knew. Kino had to know. And Anna, too, and maybe even Yoh, and…

A hand grasped her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it too much. It’s normal for you to seek understanding.”

Tamao’s stomach still felt full with bile, but she managed to look up. She saw, from underneath her pink bangs, that Yohmei was smiling kindly, as always. He squeezed her shoulder, not hard, just strong enough to keep her anchored in the real world, and to keep her from spiraling into the anxiety that was already quickening her breath.

That wasn’t enough to let her answer, though. The old man released her. “I am used to listening to my own environment. It comes with age. You’ll see. With it comes patience, and the ability to understand the anxiety younger people can experience. If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.”

In spite of her throat, still painfully blocked, Tamao nodded feebly. The rhythm of Yohmei’s voice had a very peculiar effect on her. It was soothing. Did he realize it? She should tell him. It was important to say such things.

“You should, however, learn to better hide your own presence. You have a natural disposition for it, that is for sure,” he said softly, with on his face a sort of half-smile that looked like Yoh’s. “People don’t hear you, and barely see you unless you decide to be noticed. But a careful mind – and I don’t pretend to be the most careful out here – can still sense your presence. And it’s still too obvious for where you’ll go.”

Tamao frowned. Where she’d go...? She wanted to ask about that, but didn’t have time.

“You’ll want to go with Yoh to the tournament, won’t you? To protect him?”

Yohmei’s gaze was deeply kind. She thought about Yoh who was still alive, and the stranger who was dead, and how awful her dreams were and how she wanted to stop them at any cost. She had never thought about it like that, but the answer came to her all at one, burningly obvious: “Yes.”

The old man smiled. “I didn’t expect anything else. Let’s start right away, if that’s fine with you. You can even ask your spirits to join; they could do with some more training...”

“I have no clue what you mean, old geezer,” Ponchi growled, his nose peeking from beneath the patio. “We are _super good_ at discreet infiltration!”

“Dang it, you should have said discreet _penetration...”_

“In any case we won’t be following any classes! We’re not brats!“

“Yeah, like he said! We’re older than you, old man!”

The two ghosts then made a crude gesture and ran away laughing towards the house’s foundations. Panic sparked across Tamao’s face and she turned to apologize to Yohmei, but he merely looked amused. “Oh well, their loss. You may want to try and teach them yourself, later. They might accept it from you.”

“You think?” She didn’t, really.

But when he nodded, he did so very confidently, and very obviously so. It was kind if not realistic, so she fought to believe it too, at least a little.

“Well, then,” said he before tapping the porch grounds with his cane. “Let us start, if you are ready. Sit down and close your eyes.”

Tamao obeyed. Now that she had a little time to think about what he had said – now that she had calmed down a bit – she could feel some... Warmth, fill up her body at the thought of this new training. She was used to being neither seen nor heard, almost invisible, and it was everything but pleasant. Yohmei offered to make it a tool, a _gift._ Something not only useful but also crucial for her survival and her mission. It was a rather... Freeing point of view, if she was honest.

“Focus on your furyoku. Do you feel the strength rolling within you? Do you feel the strength of the waves?”

Tamao tried to visualize what he was speaking about. Waves? She wasn’t an ocean. Far from it.

“You can start by focusing on mine. You can still see me when your eyes are closed, don’t you?”

Tamao focused harder and let her head drop. Yes, she could still sense Yohmei’s presence beside her, and she did not need to open her eyes. If he vanished all of a sudden, she would know it, she was sure of it. But it was so blurry yet...

Slowly, ever so slowly, she managed to separate the grandfather from the world. It wasn’t like an ocean, or at least it wasn’t the image that immediately sprung to mind. It was more like... A flame, that cut out a still-blurry silhouette around Yohmei. It was... Rather stable, peaceful... Alright, maybe she saw how it could be like an ocean. As far as he was considered, at least.

“O-OK, I... I can see you,” she said.

“Good. Now that you know what to look for, look inwards. We’ll learn how to quiet the ocean, and make it almost disappear...”

Tamao obediently turned away from Yohmei’s liquid flame and tried to locate herself within the blurry world of energy. It took her some time, because it was blurry, instable, fragile, but she finally saw it. Saw herself.

It was very small, smaller than Yohmei’s. It was less of a flame, less of an ocean than a spark, small and suddenly big, flickering, worried.

“Why do... Why does it do that?”

As if from far, far away, she heard Yohmei say: “Your energy is limited, so your footprint is fainter. The fluctuations of your emotions create those of your soul, and those are what I want you to control. Your furyoku level being low is a good thing if it keeps you under the radar, but those spikes can betray you. Do you follow?”

She gave a vague nod. Connected to her emotions? She had to silence her emotions? If that could protect her, if it was a solution...

“The idea is not to keep yourself from feeling. You just need to control your output so that it does not fluctuate depending on what you’re experiencing,” he added, as if he had heard her. Swallowing, the young girl nodded.

“I want you to really understand that, so stop me if you need to. Are you ready? If so, listen carefully...”

* * *

“It’s gonna be so good,” Ponchi crooned. “Keep one for us!”

“More than one,” said his partner in crime. They made Tamao smile.

“Only if you behave! And don’t go pranking anyone.”

She perceived from the perverted ruckus the impossibility of it, so she made a concession: “For at least a week?”

“We’re going to need a lot of ones, then.”

Figuring this was as good as it was going to get, Tamao nodded, and put the plate back in the oven. “I hope everything went well for her... The train’s comfortable, I think, but the trip is really long, and I think they said rain was coming...”

Talking while alone – talking at her spirits rather than with them, because all in all they cared very little about Anna’s trip to the mansion – helped keep her relaxed. While her biscuits cooked, Tamao prepared some tea.

“Remind me to buy more soon, otherwise we’ll run out,” she noted. “Our reserves have seriously melted with our new guests...”

“If you give us more senbei, we could go steal some at the store!”

Tamao shook her head. “Thank you, but I like the cashier well enough. I don’t want to have to go pay her later for things you stole.”

“You’re not getting the basics of the whole stealing thing, I think.”

“We could show you! She wouldn’t know anything of it!”

“And then she’ll be fired because of the lost stock. Thank you, both of you... It’s very kind, but... Please, don’t. It bothers me more than anything else.”

“Okay...”

Opening the oven again, Tamao iced her _senbei_ , and then grilled them. Baking did her good. It was easy – and even when it wasn’t, it was nice. She knew how to turn flour into cakes, vegetables into soup, empty stomachs into satisfied sighs. It was nice to have a gift, even a small one. Maybe one day she would be allowed to bake for the stranger of her dreams…

“I’m home,” said a voice behind her, dragging her out of her reverie just as she turned the oven off.

Tamao immediately felt nervous, but she took the time to get her biscuits out before she turned and moved closer to the door. “Welcome, Anna-sama! I hope the trip wasn’t… too long?”

The small blonde, who had just finished taking off her shoes, shook her head and moved to sit in the kitchen, gesturing for Tamao to do the same. “Not more than usual, no. Anyway, I couldn’t not come. Still having dreams?”

Tamao knew Anna always went straight to the point, and still she felt thrown off balance. Anna had _just_ arrived... But that was normal, after all. It was _her_ fiancé that died in the vision. She had the right to worry, like Tamao, more than Tamao. Nervously coughing, she moved closer to the table and nodded shyly.

Anna, still staring at her, copied her actions. Then came the question, unexpected, burning:

“I won’t repeat myself, Tamao, and I’ll only ask this once. Is this all meant to capture Yoh’s attention?”

Tamao needed a few seconds to understand what Anna just said. Her shock made her pale, then turn red, and then green. She felt like she was choking. She wasn’t offended; she was hurt, and she refused to understand. How could Anna...?

“So? Yes or no, Tamao, it’s not hard.”

Feeling her heart move up to her lips, Tamao shook her head.

“Yes or no?”

“N-no. No, Anna-sama, I wouldn’t dare, I... I’m telling the truth.”

Anna nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”

“What?”

“I believe you. So. Visions. Always the same one?”

Tamao, still standing near the table, had to sit. It was a lot to take in. She didn’t want her friend to get annoyed with her, though, not after such a comforting admission. “Y-yes, well... I mean, yes, it’s always the same story. It takes place during the tournament – I think – and the car I am in... explodes.”

“And Hao arrives and tells you that Yoh, as well as many other people, are dead, but the girl with you is not.”

“That’s... yes. But... but she’s not just a girl. She is... Powerful, and... Important. For me. For everyone. And... For Hao, too,” Tamao whispered, without really knowing why she said it. Because of the second vision, probably? The one she didn’t dare share.

“It’s almost like... I mean, almost like... He could have killed her, but he didn’t. I think that means... something.”

“He doesn’t want to hurt her? Maybe because she’s one of his,” Anna shrugged.

Tamao frowned and tried to focus on the pictures still in her memories.

“No, no, not at all. I’m sure I... She’s... Not with him. I thought he _would_ kill her. I didn’t... Don’t understand why he didn’t... But she’s not with Yoh-sama either. She... Has her own side.”

That had to be a possibility, right? There were dozens of people planning on participating. Why not just as many groups?

“I see,” Anna said quietly. “And the dream comes back often?”

“Almost... Every time I close my eyes. Always – erm, yes – always the same... Nightmarish vision. I always... Get the feeling everything is over. He just won, and that’s it.”

Anna raised her hand to stop her. “That’s not what I asked you. Did you manage to sleep at all? I mean without having the dream?”

She shrugged. “Not... Without dreaming, no.”

“Are you tired?”

How did she make it sound like she was accusing her of something?

“Yes... A bit.”

“I see.”

Anna rose, and moved closer to the _senbei_. Pushing Ponchi away, she grabbed a biscuit. “I believe you. Get your things ready. We’re going back to Tokyo.”

Tokyo _?_ _We?_ “We are?”

Anna turned back towards her, her face an iron mask. “Yes. I want to keep an eye on you, and I think you will fare better there. We will take the 7 p.m. train.”

And without wasting any more time, the blond woman left the room with the tray in her hands.

Tamao faltered. She felt like she had just been interrogated. Yet... Yet she felt a great wave of relief wash over her. Anna believed her too, and wanted to help, and... She could almost believe she would be able to save Yoh, and the stranger. No. No more hesitating. She would save them. Both of them.

Hao had better be very well prepared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do you think? What exciting adventures await Tamao and Anna in Tokyo?
> 
> I'm not very used to writing Anna and the Asakura characters in general, so any and all criticism is welcome. I try to make it all work in English, but translating so very directly means the French can sometimes be felt. If it's bothersome, tell me!
> 
> And if it's not, or you liked what you read, tell me, too. It gives me courage to continue!


	7. Dark Pines in Your Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, well, well, and who are you?”

One glance was enough for Tamao to check her whole room. It seemed really, really small. Much better, in some ways, than the great unknown awaiting her: her room was a warm and safe cocoon.

An empty one now, one gutted, cleaned until it was neutral and strange, an empty, soulless room. Odd how few personal things she had: they all fit in her backpack and a half-full sports bag. Clothes, notebooks, paintbrushes, pencils, her tablet... And that was almost everything. Almost all of her life, and it fit in two small bags.

Struggling not to feel too bad about that, the young girl closed the door of her bedroom and tried to sneak out of the house silently. She didn’t want to bother him... And she had almost reached the door when a voice made her go still.

“And, Tamao?”

The startled girl turned back and met Yohmei’s gaze. Ah... Well, there went her plan. But Yohmei didn’t seem too upset: he smiled instead, as always.

“Whatever happens, you know you’ll always be welcomed back here, don’t you? This is your home.”

Without warning, tears came to Tamao, and she numbly let them fall. It was a lie, but a kind one. Or... Or maybe it wasn’t even a lie, maybe for him it was true and she had always misknown him. It didn’t matter anymore. In any case, she was happy that her bangs hid the mist in her eyes.

Feeling moved, she stepped closer to Yohmei, bowed deeply, and took him in her arms. She was careful, as she worried about throwing him off-balance, but he didn’t even seem surprised. He hugged her back for a few long seconds before letting go and patting her head.

“Take care, Tamao. And watch over Anna and our Yoh.”

This new show of trust made her blush, and she gave him a brave nod. _Our_ Yoh. The family’s. Hers, too, in some little, humble way. “I promise. I... I’ll be back soon.”  
“The Tanabata festival, yes. I can’t wait.”

Tamao straightened up, smiling like she’d never smiled before, and left the house, her travel bag tight against her. Anna was waiting for her by the gates, tapping on her phone with an annoyed grimace plastered on her face. “You sure took your time. Come on, let’s move,” she growled. She wanted to convey irritation, that much was clear; Tamao did not let herself get upset. Adopting Anna’s rapid pace, she grew further and further from the mansion she had lived in for years without looking back.

“I was thinking,” Anna suddenly piped up as they neared the station, “what about Mikki? Did you get a message back?”

Tamao shook her head. “He must be climbing. He doesn’t have a phone and... I don’t know when he will get our message. He forgets he needs to... Pay attention.”

Mikihisa forgot a lot when he was climbing. He forgot to eat, drink or sleep. He forgot that his student was slower, had less experience, and less strength. He forgot how to talk, he forgot her entire existence, sometimes perhaps even his own. He was clearly trying to forget something else, so Tamao rarely dared to interrupt and remind him. Without her to sometimes dare, things probably grew worse.

“How... How do you think he will react?”  
“When he learns you see a future in which Yoh dies? Probably not well. You know him better than I do. I am rather content with him not knowing yet, though.”

Tamao frowned. Content? That made no sense. Unless Anna knew something she didn’t... Which was very much possible.

“You think he would not take it well?”  
“You could say that. I will explain later. For now, we have a train to catch.”

The curt marching orders were barely taken into account, for Tamao was much too focused on Anna’s first two sentences. Later? Anna would finally start explaining her behavior! Maybe Kino had decided _she_ would be the one to tell her everything. Or maybe Anna was going to go against the wishes of the matriarch. She was strong enough to do so; the fact had always impressed Tamao.

They caught their train rather early, and could comfortably settle in their shared cabin. Had she already taken this train? She had no memories of it. Mikki had taken her to the domain on foot. “I hadn’t realized it was so far away. We’re going to have to sleep, won’t we?”  
“Yes. Make sure Conchi and Ponchi stay quiet. I don’t want them to cause a mess in such a public place.”

The two spirits looked at each other. “Pinky promise,” Ponchi said, apparently unaware that Tamao could see his crossed fingers behind his back. “We’ll be nice and quiet...”  
“You won’t even see us!”  
“I’m serious. Be good or I swear...”

“We’re always good!”

Tamao wasn’t entirely convinced, but it was obvious Anna didn’t want to have to be involved, so it would have to work. Posant ses écouteurs dans les oreilles et son bandeau sur les yeux, elle croisa les bras et se rencogna dans son futon. Tamao immediately dropped the volume of her voice, afraid to wake her back up.

“Please, please be nice,” she whispered to her spirits, “otherwise I won’t ever cook you anything anymore!”

The two pranking spirits promised. Given how the train was laid out, she wouldn’t be able to watch them if they left the cabin, so she had to trust them, at least a little.

Still keeping an eye on them for now, she got her watercolors out and set up near the window. The train started to move, and she watched as the world blurred together. Night would soon fall, so she decided to use the last light of the day to its fullest and burn images into her mind. Trains weren’t a very good setting for painting practice, what with all the moving and jerking, but... As soon as she had time for herself, she would try to capture the light she saw out of this train window. It was so beautiful... But as she started to get absorbed in the pretty colors, her eyelids started to droop, and without fighting it she let herself slip into sleep.

In this one dream, she was walking on a countryside path, one that split a gigantic field of lavender right in two. It didn’t look like Izumo’s countryside, or at least not the areas of it she’d already seen. It could have been anywhere, in any country; nothing seemed particularly strange or remarkable.

She continued walking, because, well, she had nothing better to do. An odd scent wafted from the ground, wrapping itself around her like a coat of greenery and silence. Everything seemed frozen over, like it came from an old picture found in an attic: the sky was too blue, the grass too green. Everything was perfect, just too perfect to be real...

She heard water chiming up ahead, and without thinking she turned in that direction. That bell-like laugh was somehow enticing enough to get her to leave the path and start into the bushes of a small, bright forest. The promise of refreshing water had conquered her entirely...

... And soon she could see the river, its beguiling and slippery banks, its air heavy with moisture. She blinked, closing her eyes just a second, and then before her was a wooden door. It seemed to be anchored to nothing, only held aloft by heavy and stabby wisteria trunks. It didn’t feel odd to find such a weird house in the middle of the forest: without feeling an ounce of discouragement she raised the heavy lichen curtain to stare at the door before pushing it open.

The wood disappeared soundlessly, and once more she was draped in the sun’s golden mantle. She was blinded at first, but only for a little while. When it wore off she saw a house surrounded by trees. The branches were heavy with unknown fruits, and the ground was covered in red flowers she recognized to be spider lilies. Dread didn’t even register; Tamao felt like she was in a pure fairy tale dream. Stepping in between the trees, she followed the call of the water. It seemed that the very flowers moved to open up a path for her, only grazing her with the very softest tips of their petals. These felt like as many hands reaching for her.

She finally discovered the source of the sound: a silver ribbon curling around the thick roots. Without waiting she splashed her face with water; it was icy, but in this hot day it felt like a great delight. As if she were drawing almost too much pleasure from this simple, childish game. And then -

And then  _something_ told her to look up, to fall silent, and to see...

… Hao.

The first Asakura was asleep under the oldest tree -- an apple tree, she decided. The branches knotted themselves over his head like a crown, and the flowers themselves seemed to adorn him.  Even now that he was asleep, he exuded power, trickery, cruelty. A shiver burned through Tamao as a random memory shot up through her brain: A spider. He was a spider.

Yet, under the cover of flowers, he could have seemed innocent; as long as one didn’t look at the face, it was easy to fall for the trap. Wrapped in a fire red kimono that was slipping from one of his shoulders, he seemed frail, melancholy, barely there. Where was the laughing demon from her nightmares? Instead she was seeing a prince, and now that she had a second look the face that had scared her so bad seemed instead to show an emotion she wasn’t sure how to define. It was all so... Sad, yes, sadness was what burrowed in her gut. And it was sadness that burst out of her, turning the landscape inside out until everything was washed away. The reds, the greens all grew still and dark and damp, taking the appearance of ashes. Everything now reeked of death and had seemingly turned to stone. It was so sad...

Filled with this strange feeling, she got even closer, strange tall grass caressing her feet. Kino said Hao was a bloodlusty madman, and her other dreams seemed to confirm that fact, but right then and there he was just like Yoh: a child, unaware of anything going on around him, a child who was more a victim than anyone responsible for the horrors going on around him.

Then she realized that the chatter of the water was intermingling with whispers, and she noticed the eyes under the leaves, the knots in the wood, the flowers. Those were spirits, dozens and dozens of little spirits of various colors and forms. Only their eyes were the same: all curious and hungry. The bravest stepped forward into the light, sniffing the air as if to identify her. One got even closer, and Tamao, growing worried, stepped back –

– her foot stumbled on Hao’s leg –

– she almost fell but managed to keep her balance, though her breath grew short and hasty. The spirits had vanished, leaving her alone once more. She let out a relieved sigh... And then heard it echo behind her. Tamao turned slowly and froze when she saw that Hao’s eyes were open.

“Well, well, well, and who are _you_?”

Tamao sensed the command underneath the question, felt the answer jump to her lips, her brain howl under the strain. _Something_ , something intangible and hot had wrapped itself around her and devoured her, something that seemed to pick her head apart and keep her still and unable to move. She knew that she had to flee, wake up, _get away_ from the spider before it _bit_ –

“Tamamura Tamao,” the eldest Asakura twin whispered, and her fright grew. She hadn’t said anything, she was sure of that, she _hadn’t said a word_ and yet –

And yet she knew for certain that he had just picked her name from her thoughts, and he was taking more, a lot more, and she was helpless to stop him –

She started to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we’re getting to the good stuff.
> 
> Shaman King is not mine. I just want to see who runs the fastest when I throw plastic spiders at them. Title is from Gwendolyn MacEwen. There is something down there and you want it told.
> 
> Merry Xmas to my lovely reviewers! Nestrior, Nualie, AvalonCat especially, love you to bits <3


	8. There is no thou to speak of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You have a good heart, Tamao. Open and kind. I suppose that is why your soul responded to our call.”

A sudden surge of pain tore her from the dream and the spider’s eyes. The shock brought Tamao instantly back to the train. Her cheek stung. Had someone struck her? Struck her in the real world?

“Tamamura Tamao,” Anna called roughly, dissipating the last remnants of her dream.

Tamao found herself on the train, short-breathed and terrified. Being woken up thusly after any other dream would have infuriated her – because it was now obvious Anna had been the one to tear her out of the dream. She had not escaped on her own and the burning feeling on her cheek proved it. Yet – yet all of herself was now relieved she was free from the spider’s web. How could one singular being be so terrifying?

Anna moved her hand away. Her face was stone-hard.

Then, when she saw that Tamao was awake, she smiled – a new mystery that Tamao couldn’t solve at first – and laid back down on her futon. “You are not sleeping anymore, good. Stay awake now.”

Furrowing her brow, the younger girl found herself stuttering. “What…?”

“You were dreaming, right? You were having a vision?”

“Yes…”

“You were pale as paper. Cold like a ghost. And you were having a seizure.”

She made it sound like Tamao was somehow at fault. “S-sorry...?”

“Stay awake. It is obvious that your dreams are killing you, Tamao. So, I don’t know... Maybe draw me something,” Anna ordered, before pushing a tissue in her hands. “The waterfall near the Asakura mansion, for example.”

Tamao frowned, feeling still woozy from sleep, and took the tissue without really understanding what to use it for. “A--Anna-sama...?”

The blonde girl pointed to her face. “You’re bleeding. From your nose.”

To her great surprise, Tamao realized Anna was right, and that her blood had dribbled down even to her lips. She cleaned herself up quickly. “Why do... I need to draw?”

“Because that’ll keep you busy. You can’t be sleeping anymore, Tamao, it is obvious your body cannot bear it. That is why I had you come.”

Tamao blinked, looked at the scarlet tissue, then at Anna. “How..?” Then she felt like she understood. “Will the training help me deal with all this, then?”

“Yes, but not only. I know someone in Tokyo who can give you something to make you sleep. Really sleep, without any dreams.”

Right then, the train went dark. Tamao swallowed, something hard coagulating in her gut.

“But... I... In the dream... Anna, I need...”

“You need to sleep. To really sleep. To really _rest_ before you keel over and die.”

Swallowing, Tamao looked out the dark window. “You don’t want me to... See how to stop what I saw?”

“Of course I do. I will not forgive myself if Yoh dies.”

“But then...”

“But then saving Yoh means saving you first. It means anchoring you in our world and in your body, allowing you to see what you can see without having you explode. Because you don’t see it, because Kino doesn’t want to see it, but your new power is dangerous, Tamao. You don’t really sleep, you barely eat... You are making yourself weaker. That is not acceptable.”

Tamao blinked while, as the train met a bump on the rail, the soft light from the corridors filled their car once more. It dripped on Anna’s face without violence, highlighting the Olympian quiet of her features, the tranquil confidence.

“I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be. Being sorry won’t save Yoh or anyone else. I am going to find a way to get you to sleep, really sleep, and then you’ll learn to take care of yourself, body and soul. Only then will you be able to protect anybody. You understand?”

Her voice was so very dry. It could have frightened Tamao, but she was not fooled. She sensed there was… something like an olive branch behind that cold exterior, a bridge extending.

“Anna-sama…”

“You understand?”

Though confused, Tamao gave her a quick nod. It all seemed so... Counter-intuitive _._ Anna was not asking her to do any and everything for Yoh, or at least not to sacrifice herself – or rather she was saying Tamao had misunderstood the problem.

With a sigh, Anna pushed her notebook and pencils towards Tamao. “Try to draw. There’s only two hours before we get to the station. You’ll rest tomorrow night.”

Tamao glanced at her, a bit overwhelmed. She was often overwhelmed when standing beside Anna, but she had forgotten how much when Anna was away. Swallowing, she nodded. “Go... Go back to sleep. I will be careful. I promise,” she said, carefully. As if to show her obedience, she scooted out of her futon and towards the wall, leaning against it to try and put what she had just seen into shape and words. The spider... Even thinking about it – even trying to remember that Hao she didn’t know and who didn’t seem to know her – caused shivers to course down her back. And where was the princess in that dream? 

To try and keep her mind busy, she foraged through the little bundle of tourist-oriented flyers meant for foreign travelers. There wasn’t much she could draw in there: the pictures were too small and covered in markings. Drawing from memory proved equally fruitless. It seemed ideas themselves were refusing to come to her.

In spite of Anna’s orders, Tamao felt herself give in to sleep. It was pretty hard to fight it, in this warm and comfortable train barreling across the night; at every moment the urge to close her eyes fully reemerged. Still she fought it, tried to focus on her book, in vain. It was as if the dream itself came to fetch her from reality: she could see small laughing spirits from in between her half-closed eyelids, and they were talking right at the edge of the understandable, laughing and chanting and dancing around her like a grand foreboding party. She closed her eyes to focus on their voices...

... And fell asleep.

The first dream was short, lightning-bright, and almost immediately forgotten. It was the type of dream where you still clung to reality, to putting meaning where there is none while slipping deeper and deeper into the forests of the deep.

They were three, lying down between blindingly white sheets. She knew it to be so, because she was holding two different hands, and she could see that the strange princess was in the same position. They composed a perfect triangle between the mattress – soft, soft as a cloud – and the sheets. She wasn’t kept still, wasn’t bound down. Yet she could not turn her head towards the third member of the triangle. No, she was staring at the princess. It was hopeless to even try and look away. She seemed so confident... And she was smiling. It was the first time Tamao saw her smile. It was hypnotizing. Magnetic. A princess’s smile.

Tamao opened her mouth and said a word, a word she didn’t know, and couldn’t hear. It drew a smile from the princess, who replied with Tamao’s name and just the same amount of sweetness.

Then the sheet fell between them, and everything disappeared.

Tamao opened her eyes under a purple tunnel. A blinding light covered all around her, and for a few moments she drowned in color.

Then the sun seemed to settle and the world around her fragmented itself into shapes, corollas and petals, all in purple shades. She was… she was under a gigantic wisteria arbor.

Tamao had seen many pink springs, but this one was her first mauve one. And, amidst all this beauty, standing alone in her beautiful white dress, stood the girl from her dreams. The flowers hanging around her head made her a makeshift crown.

Seeing her, Tamao heard waves. The air turned salty, like she was crying or in front of the ocean, and the girl was standing there, looking more than ever like a siren who had learned to walk.

Tamao opened her mouth. No name came out.

Still the siren replied. “Tamao,” she said, opening her arms wide.

Feeling as if she had been hypnotized, Tamao took a few steps towards her. It didn’t feel like she was making progress. Was the siren even there? Or was she merely a figment of her imagination? She knew she was taking steps, as she passed by little white benches, but…

“Tamao," the girl said again, her voice suddenly full with worry. “Tamao, don’t move.”

She hadn’t turned the sentence into a command, and yet Tamao froze as if she’d heard one. The siren saw that she was listened to, and she smiled. Her smile was so bright it could have lit up the entire planet.

“Tamao… “With her arms still open, the princess started approaching. Above her, the flowers grew big, heavy, and then they fell, floating away in mad arcs in the windless sky. The leaves yellowed, then browned. They joined the dead flowers around the girls’ naked feet, and suddenly the arbor too was naked, only covered by the thin, tortuous branches that looked like spider legs – no, no spiders here. Just the siren who knew her name.

Tamao, still frozen, took a good look at her princess. She couldn’t recognize her now that she was awake. She seemed… younger, softer. Her face and hands were more those of a child, her hair was shorter. She looked less like a princess and more like a girl in disguise.

The false-true siren stopped right in front of her, waited for a thousand years, and took her hands in hers. “Tamao," she said again.

Finally, _finally_ , Tamao’s tongue started to move. “Where are we?”

The unknown girl did not reply. She seemed to be completely fascinated with Tamao’s hands.

“I’ve never been here."

The stranger smiled.

"Me neither. Makes it the best place for a chance meeting, don’t you think?”

“It’s… it’s very nice. Are – are you there? Right now?”

The question made her smile, and Tamao felt herself fall. That smile could have conquered empires and bent the unbending. “Have you not eyes to see, my bold bird? Ears to hear?”

Tamao frowned. Was it still a dream, what she was seeing, or did the strange girl just tell her where she could be found? Running on sheer instinct she searched for a post, writing, anything that could tell her how to find this garden, but then a cool forehead touched her own and she froze. The siren had moved until she was right against her.

“We don’t have much time, Tamao. Focus. I need you to really listen to me now.”

Without letting go of her hands, the siren started moving. Tamao could do little but move with. They started down a perpendicular alley that ended in front of a fountain in bloom. Tamao wouldn’t have been able to define it in any other way.

She had no time to marvel at the beauty around them. “You need to… you need to show me what comes next,” she asked. “I need to know more, I need to know you better. Otherwise – otherwise I can’t find you!”

The siren shook her head.

“Don’t just shake your head! I want to stop what I saw from happening. I can do it. I just... Need to know you, and to talk to you, to persuade you,” she begged.

“Slow down, slow down,” the siren said in a voice that would have soothed monsters. “Be calm. You need to rest. You need to sleep – really sleep. Sleep without dreams. Otherwise you will die.”

Tamao frowned. Die? Anna said the same things. In other words. But... but...

“It’s okay,” she breathed. “It’s okay, if I can save Yoh, if I can save humanity, if I can…” Her throat felt tight. She had no claim on a stranger’s life, but she had a very pressing need to stake one. “I don’t want… Hao to make you sleep. I don’t know what effect it will have on you, but… I don’t want him to.”

The siren’s smile soured all of a sudden, and then the shadow of anger was gone. She was like a mountaintop, hard and cold and constantly changing. “You are kind. I suppose that is why you heard us.”

Tama frowned. She heard…? “I…”

“Shh.”

The princess seemed to have noticed something on Tamao’s hands. She was still holding them, and she made them turn to stare at her palms, a strange look on her face. Tamao couldn’t see anything odd.

“He found you,” the siren finally said. “I didn’t expect it so soon.”

Who was she talking about? Hao? No, that had been only a dream. He surely did not even know she existed. Did he?

Maybe she wasn’t talking about Hao. There was no anger on her face, no fear, just… something akin to melancholy.

“He doesn’t know anything,” the stranger said, still staring. “He can’t stop this. Not without…” Then she stopped, shook her head, and closed Tamao’s hands.

“You need to be calm, Tamao.”

“I – I am calm,” she stuttered. She didn’t understand.

The siren shook her head. “Not right now, dove. Your dreams are destroying you from the inside. It is not through sacrifice that you will keep them from happening.”

Tamao’s throat tightened. Anna was right.

“I am not trying to…”

“You say that, but you keep yearning for more. You jot down everything you see in your dreams. You make sketches. You focus more on me than your real life.”

Tamao tilted her head, honestly confused. “Should I ignore them? Ignore you? If I do, then you…”

“Shh, no fretting. You have a good heart, Tamao. Open and kind. I suppose that is why your soul responded to our call.”

Things weren’t getting any clearer. “Your... call?”

“Your soul is starting to separate from your body, my bold one. That’s how he found you. Travelers often come upon one another. But you won’t have the strength nor the mastery to travel safe and sound. You need to find better tools to help you withstand this journey. Until then, you should focus on the physical world. Stop trying to find me.”

Tamao swallowed and let go of the siren’s hands. She didn’t understand. Even if Anna was right, even if she put her life on the line... She had to...

“Then… Then just show me what matters most,” she begged, attempting to negotiate.  “No details. Just the most important things – how to save you – and then I’ll stop. If you show me that and then I lose... I mean... If you show me and the visions stop, I won’t die. I’ll be able to do what I must. What you want. I will – I’d do anything! So just show me what I have to do!” 

Tamao had not expected to have such an outburst, but she couldn’t calm down. The stranger had grown still, her kind smile suddenly gone. It was as if she had been blown off, dead on her feet, turned into some wax figure only playing at being human.

Then she growled. She growled like only the sky can growl, a deep and terrible noise that wrecked havoc even in Tamao’s vision. She took a step back, suddenly afraid of having gone too far; when she managed to look her princess in the eye again she wasn’t the princess anymore. Or perhaps that was the real her: she was just as tall, she had the same cascading snowy locks, and she was still clad in her disguise. But her face was gone, replaced with a heavy plaster mask covered in precious gems. And it was cracking.

“You’re not listening,” the creature growled. Her stone lips did not move. “You’re not listening!”

“Sorry, sorry, I...”

“Obey, or die,” the monster howled.

Tamao turned tail and fled. She couldn’t bear to look at the thing again. Where had the princess gone? She wasn’t the one behind this brutal attack, Tamao was sure of that. The true one was in the garden, she had to be, she had _told_ her so. If she could only find her… Then maybe she would get her answers.Behind her, something had started giving chase. It was making entirely too much noise to be just the false princess. She heard beasts, snarls, fangs raking against the wood. Taking a sharp turn in the main trail, Tamao saw the entrance gates. She instantly knew she wouldn’t get there in time.

“Tamao,” someone said in her ear. “Tamao, come and find me.”

Something lunged and grabbed onto her back.

And then everything grew dark.

* * *

“Tamao!”

“Tamao, are you okay?” 

Another slap hit Tamao’s cheek. It wasn’t Anna’s, no, just a vague approximation of it, offered by a clearly nervous Conchi.

“Anna said not to let you sleep,” he said, as if to apologize. “She, for one, is still sleeping, but the train will be at the station soon, so…”

“We didn’t want her to yell at you.”

“That’s… you are… that’s very kind of you. Both of you,” Tamao breathed.

“You had another dream, didn’t you? Anna said…”

“I know what she said.” With a sigh Tamao rose and started rummaging through the flyers. She had seen the garden in them, she was sure of it…

“Here,” she said, almost too loud. She could have woken up Anna. Chastising herself in her head, she looked through the brochure and showed it to her spirits. It boasted of the beauty and unique charm of the Kawachi gardens. Wisteria gardens. Tamao peered at the beautifully colored archways, the purple fountains, the pinkish brooks. “It was there,” she whispered. “The, the stranger, I saw her there.” But when she saw her the colors weren’t as strong, the flowers weren’t in bloom. The princess had stood under green archways...

“Tamao?”

Happy to have finally found a clue, the young girl allowed herself a deep sigh. Then, before her spirits stopped her, she grabbed both of them in her arms and hugged them tight.

“Thanks.”

“T-Tamao...”

“Hey, you know...”

“One crass joke, Conchi. One, and... There won’t be any dessert for a whole month, both of you.”

“Oh.”

“Disappointing.”

Tamao buried her head in their fur. “Let me have this for a minute. Just... a... minute...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shaman King is not mine. I just want to see who cries the hardest when I smack their ice cream out of their greedy hands.
> 
> Title comes from Lucie Brock-Broido’s A Girl Ago. It begins, “No feeding on wisteria…”
> 
> Hao and his bowl of nourishing herbs comes from a really nice fic from Realgya, over there on fanfiction dot net, called Au creux de la nuit. The context is different, but I liked giving her a nod!
> 
> I have a few chapters ready to go, just need to find them titles. It’s kind of the hardest part of it. Can’t wait to know what you think of this one and what you think is happening!

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer : SK doesn't belong to me. I'm just having the characters dance to my tune to see who can do the sweetest backflips.
> 
> Soundtrack: Contemplation of the beautiful (Earthside feat Eric Zirlinger); Meet Me on the Battleshield (ZVRCINA); Safe and Sound (The Civil Wars); Your bones (Of monsters and men)
> 
> Notes: This is a translation of a fic available in French both on here and on fanfiction.net. That French fic is also mine. If you like it, or want to see more of it translated, please tell me! If there is stuff you don't like, please also tell me, I love concrit.
> 
> The name of this chapter comes from T.S. Elliot, as you might guess.
> 
> This scene came to me all at once, in English, straight up divine inspiration that sparked a super long fic I'm still only beginning. Now that I look back at it... I don't want to change a thing. It's a great feeling!
> 
> Though I've made some progress on the French side, I haven't translated anything but this first chapter, so updates might be a bit slow.


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